


Catching Shadows

by Shadow2Serenity



Category: due South
Genre: Adventure, Case Fic, Due South 20th Anniversary, Friendship, Gen, Mystery, Older Characters, Reunion, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-17 19:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 120,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2320940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow2Serenity/pseuds/Shadow2Serenity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been twenty years since Benton Fraser first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father, and first met Ray Vecchio when their trails converged. Little do they suspect that those trails are about to converge again....over the corpse of an old acquaintance of both of them. As Ray Kowalski joins them to investigate the corpse's connection to a sudden surge in Amber Alerts around the south shore of the lake they call Michigan, a deeply buried secret will resurface to make the case intensely personal for all of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> **ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:**  
> 
> 
> Special and kindly thanks to my dear friends on [William and Elyse's Due South Forum](http://s6.zetaboards.com/Due_South/index) for being there when I returned to the fandom. Extra special thanks to dS_Tiff, Ride_Forever and ButterflyGhost for their friendship, support, and encouragement, and to montecarlogirl87 for supporting not only this story, but another ambitious fan endeavour of mine *cough*Riv*coughcough*.
> 
> Further kindly thanks are due to KLessard and Annie M for their feedback and advice on a couple of the later chapters.
> 
> Very special kindly thanks to Crosscountry07 for beta-reading.
> 
> * * *  
> In keeping with Due South's use of pre-recorded music, I have included links to the YouTube tracks of my own fanmix selections where appropriate. You'll especially notice Jay Semko, Sarah McLachlan, The Tragically Hip, and Great Big Sea amongst the features.
> 
> And now, let's play cops-and-Mounties!

"Officer! Hey, officer!" The manager of the reclamation plant occupying two or three blocks of the Chicago industrial district, as irate as he was, nearly tempted the tall rookie cop to pop him in the kneecap that very second. "Wanna tell me what's happening? Can I get my crews back to work now, or what?"

"Sorry, sir, but it's not up to me," the cop said, gesturing at the yellow tape surrounding one of the huge storage sheds. "Like I've been telling you, it's a crime scene. As soon as the supervisor sets it free, she sets it free, but until then, there's no way I can promise you anything."

"Let me talk to her," the plant manager snapped. Not accustomed to his omnipotence within the plant being overruled or even questioned, he started to push past toward the tape, only to be stopped both by the tall rookie and a stocky patrolman standing nearby.

"Sir, I told you that's a crime scene!" the rookie said firmly. "It's off limits to everybody but the crime scene _squad._ Those are my orders. I can ask the supervisor for you, but I definitely wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you."

"Well, you better do that before you find the third-district alderman breathing down your neck," the plant manager spat. Under his breath he added, "Bunch of damn useless pigs is all you are."

Ignoring the insult, the rookie ducked underneath the tape and headed for the center of the scene. In addition to the perimeter guard, photographers, gatherers, and sweepers were marching about the grounds outside the giant storage shed. Alongside the shed ran a large concrete platform, beside which four high-clearance, open-top railroad cars sat on an unloading track. Two boom excavators had been in the midst of unloading construction debris from the cars and transferring it into containers mounted on truck beds, whereupon the containers would be conveyed to a garbage scow for transport to a landfill further up the lake shore. During the transload, however, one of the operators had noticed something certainly not seen every day in the plant. The end of the platform, all four of the cars, and the west end of the shed were now surrounded by yellow crime-scene tape, crawling with police and investigators.

The cop made his way to the platform and avoided dirtying his uniform by climbing up. Instead he made for a short flight of steel stairs bolted to the side, scampering up to the surface of the platform and searching out the incident command team.

"Sergeant Besbriss!" he hollered at one of the plainclothes detectives standing in the middle of the scene with an enclosed plastic clipboard under her arm. "Plant manager's getting all hot under the collar. He keeps pestering us about when he can get his guys back working. What should I tell him?"

Leaning to one side, Elaine Besbriss stared past him with an expression of annoyance. "Tell him he might as well send his guys home for the day," she answered. "The M.E. won't be here for another hour and we've still got a lot of sweeping to do. But don't use that exact word, willya?"

"Right." Turning on his heel, the cop went shambling back off for the perimeter of the scene as Elaine returned her attention to the proceedings around her. 

A large pile of junk, mostly twisted steel and concrete, lay in the dead center of the platform between the railroad cars and the storage shed. A dead body lay to one side of the pile: the excavator operator had noticed it right on top of his bucket load and panicked, dumping the load on the ground before he even shut down his machine, unthinkingly calling 911 on his cell phone. Elaine rolled her eyes, only able to imagine what the plant manager would say to him about interrupting his work to make the call. Since she and her partner had arrived on the scene, he'd already been enough of a thorn in her side, trying to keep production moving through the middle of the crime scene to the exclusion of all else. Only a close-minded corporate tool. Something about him screamed Nikita Khruschev in front of the United Nations general assembly, Elaine thought wryly to herself.

She straightened as she saw her partner, Detective Ramona Hernandez, rising from a crouch next to the body. Hernandez was in her late thirties with dark brown, briefly styled hair: by some of her features she could be easily mistaken for Italian instead of Hispanic. Some in the violent crimes division jokingly referred to her and Elaine as "Cagney and Lacey," a moniker they both laughed off despite some other detectives' grumblings about sexist remarks.

"Anything interesting?" Elaine asked, motioning with her head toward the body.

"Must have been buried deep enough in that railcar for the flies not to get to her," Hernandez said. "Female, white, maybe fifty to fifty-five years old. No bullet wounds, stab wounds, no signs of strangulation. No I.D., either."

"Any rape?" Elaine asked guardedly.

"Nothing obvious," Hernandez shook her head. "Rigor's in full, though. She's been dead for a little while. Plenty of contusions because of the load shifting around her, but no other damage to the body."

"I'm surprised there weren't any maggots down that deep."

"It's not household trash these cars are carrying, it's construction debris. That means a lot of drywall, concrete and rebar, so what the body lacks in decomposition it makes up for in bruises. At least that makes our job a little bit easier."

"Okay, let's find out which of these railcars she was in. Have Stanisewski contact the car's owner and find out where it came from, and you touch base with the rail carrier. See if you can get an interview with the crew that placed these here."

"Yeah, I'll do that." Pulling out her notebook, Hernandez headed for the storage shed, where a uniformed officer stood next to the shaken and seated excavator operator.

Meanwhile, Elaine paced slowly toward the body next to the junk pile. She felt a strange sense of deja vu. She had been an active police officer for almost eighteen years after being a civilian aide for four, but very infrequently, if ever, did an investigation whisper dark faceless secrets to her the way this one did. She didn't recognise the corpse, yet she felt as if this case was about to lead her in a giant circle, a path to the past, to old friends long gone.

"You could have come from anywhere on two hundred thousand miles of railroad, lady," she mused in a soft voice. "So what shadow _did_ you come crawling from? And how am I supposed to chase it down and catch it?"

The answers, she knew, would be a long time in coming, and so would the avenue to finding them.


	2. Old Partners

_"Get him off me! For God's sake, somebody get this guy off my tail!"_

The moustached, mulleted character running at a desperate sprint down Dearborn Street might as well have been screaming at a herd of grazing cattle. In a similar manner most of the pedestrians milling about the west side of the street hastened to get out of his way, some even took a few seconds to interrupt their texting conversations for the spectacle. Yet none of them heeded the running man's plea, instead standing idly by, watching him seemingly run for his life down the crowded sidewalk with a similarly attired man doggedly chasing after him.

Runner and pursuer pounded down the sidewalk, runner pushing confused or slow-moving spectators out of his way, pursuer carefully dodging them, muttering only a few words unintelligible at his mad-dash pace. Some would later swear that it almost sounded like he was excusing himself to them. Not for one microsecond, however, did he let up his gait, bearing down on the runner like a pelican diving after an unsuspecting fish. Unsuspecting, however, hardly described the running man. His breath came in heavy, ragged gasps, his feet pounded flatly on the pavement, and the tail of his coat flapped as madly as his jaw in his futilely screamed pleas for assistance. He had no idea what the pursuer wanted so badly with him any more than why no one could be bothered to answer his call.

Nevertheless, his spirits soared as he stumbled onto the First National Bank Plaza and spotted two police officers - one a beat patrolman, the other leaning casually against a bicycle - talking near a low concrete wall. He rushed straight for them, so out of breath by the time he reached them that the patrolman's first instinct was to call for medical aid.

"Whoa, whoa, sir, take it easy!" he said, clutching the running man by the shoulders. "Easy, now! Is there some problem?"

"Yeah, he....this....he's been chasing me....for like fifteen blocks!" the running man panted, gesturing over his shoulder. By now the pursuer had arrived, singularly little the worse for wear. He was middle-aged, but still carried his frame regally erect: he sported a well-worn brown leather jacket, a neat shock of close-cropped silver hair, and an amiable smile that seemed like it could warm the cement slabs upon which the plaza was built.

"Good afternoon, officers," the pursuer said pleasantly.

"Hi there," the bicycle cop said. "Want to tell us what's going on here?"

"C'mon, officer, I just told you, the guy's been after me for almost a half hour! I don't even _know_ what the hell his problem is!" the runner puffed, ducking for cover behind the patrolman.

"Well, sir, I believe you'll find that jaywalking is illegal and strictly prohibited under Chicago City Ordinance, section one dash twenty-nine," the pursuer said.

 _"Jaywalking?"_ the beat cop repeated in disbelief.

"You mean you just chased this guy all the way from the Riverwalk because he picked the wrong spot to cross the street?" the bicycle cop said skeptically.

"A very wrong spot, I'm afraid. North State Street is extraordinarily high-risk for illegal crossing. As a matter of fact, an old friend of mine once said that if you cannot agree on the small things, then how are you going to manage - "

"What are you, nuts?" the runner cried. "Who in his right mind chases a working stiff like me for fifteen blocks just 'cause he didn't have time to get a walk signal? Who the hell are you, anyway?!"

The pursuer smiled warmly. "My name is Staff Sergeant Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father, and for reasons that don't really need exploring at this juncture, I remained attached as a liaison with the Canadian consulate. Well, actually I've been more of a travelling liaison officer in more recent years for other reasons that - "

"Okay, okay." The beat cop, his patience clearly spent, held up both hands in a placating gesture. "Just cool your jets for a minute, Sergeant. You're not wrong about jaywalking, but I sure as hell have never heard of chasing anyone that far on foot for something like that."

"Well, officer, the smallest pebble can still start an avalanche," Fraser waxed philosophical. "I believe a citation would be in order?"

Both cops exchanged several seconds of looks before the bicycle cop shrugged. "He's not kidding."

The patrolman turned, regarding the panting, sagging, defeated man somewhat sympathetically. "Sir, anything else you want to tell us?"

"Nah." Apathy set in swiftly and the jaywalker waved a hand. "The hell with it. Garnish my pay for all I care, just get me the hell away from this guy."

"Won't be that drastic. All this really calls for is a written warning." The patrolman produced a ticket book and a pen, shooting Fraser a sidelong glance. "As for you, Sergeant Fraser, there's a little question of...." His voice trailed off and he drew himself up straight, pointing the tip of his pen at Fraser's chest. "Hold the phone. Are you _the_ Mountie?"

"Well, no, actually," Fraser said matter-of-factly. "Our current force strength is some twenty thousand persons, not including auxiliary constables or civilians."

"No, I mean the one that was trying to clean up the whole city single handed years ago. Half the force still talks about it. Some of those stories...." So preoccupied with talking, the cop never noticed Fraser stiffening, looking past him, his eyes flashing with recognition.

For Fraser had seen a familiar flash of a familiar colour in the street and Fraser never forgot a flash. His mouth hung open for all of about three seconds before he turned to the two police officers, raising a terse hand. "Would you please excuse me for a moment?" he said quickly. Without waiting for a response, he took off at a dead run, leaving both the cops and the jaywalker awash in bewilderment, wondering if they were all caught up in the same drug-induced dream.

But for Fraser it was anything but a dream. He bolted halfway across the plaza and into the street without so much as shortening his stride, keeping to a safe alley on the side of the street but still subject to the honking horns of impatient motorists. Oblivious, he pounded down the street after the blinking green blur he'd come to know and remember so well. It was as if his fifteen-block dash after the jaywalker had had no effect on him whatsoever. After another two blocks of pursuit, he saw the blur turn right onto Van Buren Street, keeping an even distance from him. He couldn't make out its features beyond the intervening mass of other vehicular traffic and pedestrians, but he ran after it nevertheless, determined to identify it positively.

He dashed around the corner behind it, nearly bowling over an old woman toting a grocery cart, hastily apologising to her before sprinting onward, jumping over a hot-dog cart to the utter surprise of the vendor. In his mighty gasps for air and his pounding pulse, he could almost hear the far-off chant of an Inuit throat singer, telling him that something earth-shattering was just round the bend. His single-minded pursuit drew less attention than his pursuit of the jaywalker, but he found suddenly and to his consternation that he no longer had anything to pursue. That green blur, once steady in front of him, was nowhere to be seen since turning the corner. His lungs ached from his laboured breathing and his heart pounded in his head, but he ran on, convinced that it couldn't have gotten far in midday downtown traffic.

Another two blocks passed beneath Fraser's pounding feet, which only now began to slow their pace as reason overtook feeling. Was it not what he'd thought? Or was it simply his imagination? Had he seen it only because he'd wanted to see it - for reasons he couldn't fathom? And even if it was only a shadow of the past, why would he be seeing it now after all these years?

Puffing, panting, he slowed his pace to a brisk jog and ran another block, but the green flash had vanished without a trace, like a ghost ship disappearing over a distant horizon. Perhaps his imagination _was_ catching up with him, along with his age. Something in the back of Fraser's mind squawked that he was almost as old now as his father had been when he was shot dead in the Canadian wilderness. He dismissed the squawk out of hand, almost ready to give up the hunt - but not completely.

_"Hey, Benny!"_

Fraser froze in his tracks.

Only one man alive had ever called him "Benny." Only one voice matched this one in his memory, and only one familiar flash of green matched these two remembrances. Imagination or not, he had no recourse but to chase it down. He spun around, fixing on a small side street he had just passed: it wasn't but ten paces behind him. He bolted, caught himself on the corner of a building and held his breath.

Only one voice, only one face, only one man.

 _"RAY!"_ Fraser exploded, breaking into the widest grin in recorded history.

With a grin no less deserving of a place in the record books, Ray Vecchio straightened up from his casual lean against his car and strode toward Fraser, who was approaching him in turn. "Still lookin' for a Detective Armani?" he said genially.

"It would appear I've found him," Fraser laughed. Somewhat closer to the car than the corner, the two men met, collided really, in a solid embrace - a strong embrace, the embrace of two old friends who hadn't seen each other in years.

Ray had changed to be sure, but there was still no mistaking him. His face showed deepening seams of age, he had lost most of his hair and what remained of it was still crew-cut, but much greyer than the last time Fraser had seen him. Nevertheless, he maintained an upright, healthy figure and he still walked with a slight, nonchalant side-to-side sway. The fake moustache with which he had once doubled for Armando Langoustini was beyond history.

Fraser, too, had aged noticeably: his own hair was no longer jet black, especially on the sides and back of his head, and he had all but buzzed those regions in response. He still kept his own excellent shape and flecks of grey had crept into his eyebrows, but the wrinkles in his eyes and cheeks most notably belied his advancing years. Yet in the embrace, Ray could still feel the same amount of strength he'd always known the Mountie to possess.

"How long's it been?" he asked as he broke away and backed a pace.

"Ahh, fifteen years, six months, and fourteen - "

"Naah, naah, naah, how long since you first crashed in on me makin' a bust right there in a holding cell?"

"Oh," Fraser said, smiling with the memory. "Just over twenty years, Ray. Twenty years since I first set a course due south."

"My God, that long," Ray said wistfully, shaking his nearly bare head. "You know, Benny, everything made sense. For nine years I didn't know where the hell I was goin', how I was ever gonna get ahead without bringing Internal Affairs down my back. Then you showed up, you grossed me out, we were best friends, you were a thorn in my ass for years, and we were the damnedest partners this city ever saw. But nothing else ever made sense the way it did when we were."

"Well, I'm happy to know that, Ray. Although your surprise reappearance causes me to question whether our partnership has seen its last days."

"Yeah, well, I knew only one guy in all of Chicago could be chasin' me on foot for five blocks," Ray said with a sarcastic grin. "Glad to find you still in town, though."

"Quite so. I take it you were looking, then."

"Well, about that." Ray rubbed his upper lip, edging backward toward his car. "Consulate?"

"Consulate."

**********

"You didn't by any chance have this car reconstructed specially, did you?" Fraser queried, glancing around the Riviera's camel-shaded interior. Though the exterior wore a fresh coat of bottle-green paint, Ray clearly had been hard pressed to find an interior pigment to match.

"Nah, not so much," Ray said with a dim smile. "Turns out these things are a damn sight easier to find with a little help from the Riviera Owners Association. But I still had to go traipsing all the way up to Fitchburg, Massachusetts to get this car. One hell of a lucky find - especially after the way you burned up the last one."

"Well, Ray, you did indicate that our partnership cleared up a great many unanswered questions," Fraser offered, ignoring the accusation. "Speaking of partnerships, the bowling alley....?"

"I wouldn't know," Ray grunted, his eyes hardening. "Stella and I split up awhile back."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"So you've found your way on to other pursuits?"

"Yeah, coaching youth basketball. It's going great. Keeps me busy, keeps those kids off the street corners, and keeps a lot of people together. But that's not really what I'm here to talk about."

"I see." Fraser wasn't certain why Ray's face was suddenly so dark with anger, but clearly it concerned Stella Kowalski and did not bear further discussion at this juncture. "Then what are you here to talk about?"

"I'm looking for a friend."

"Indeed. Have you found him?" Fraser smiled slightly.

"I'm a lot closer than I was. Speaking of the bowling alley, that's where I knew him from. Erich Wichmann, an old German guy. He belonged to one of those old buzzard cliques that'd get together for bowling in the afternoon twice a week."

"And you believe he's in Chicago." At Ray's nod, Fraser squinted. "And you believe he came to Chicago for a reason and never came home."

"Well, he wasn't looking for his dad's killer, and that's a fact."

"Do you know what he was looking for?"

Ray shrugged, shaking his head. "Beats hell out of me, Benny. I haven't heard from him in almost a month. And knowing this city as I do....had my fingers crossed all week that I just find him alive."


	3. Many Meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, hopefully this part satisfies some of the questions y'all have had so far. Meanwhile, anyone reading who isn't already a member of [William & Elyse's Due South Forum](http://s6.zetaboards.com/Due_South/index) \- by all means, skip on over and join in the fun! There's a happy place there for every DueSer who ever lived (as long as they're willing to follow the forum rules, abstain from slash, and not start any flame wars, that is).

It was not the consulate Ray remembered, but the opulence of the new-ish building took him aback. Though Fraser would gladly have offered him the full tour, he demurred - Ray was obviously here for a purpose other than tourism, besides which the fifteen-plus years' worth of catching up on each other's lives forced the novelty of the consulate to the back burner. From the front entrance they meandered toward Fraser's office, which came as no surprise to Ray as being, effectively, a storeroom with a desk to one side.

"What, no Dragon Lady?" he said, looking around.

"Well, Inspector Thatcher has retired from the public eye," Fraser said. "Unless, of course, you're referring to Inspector Meighen - Martha Meighen, that is - who served as temporary lead interim chief pro-tem liaison officer for a time."

"Yeah, and what about you? They ever ask you to move upstairs?"

"Hardly, Ray." Fraser seemed almost offended by the question. "Mind you, I have been doing a great deal of travelling over the last thirteen years, consulting with my fellow liaison officers and border authorities on the western side of the continent as it pertains to border patrol. But I'm quite at home right here when I'm down south, as you'll no doubt have noticed."

"Oh, so that's why I haven't heard a peep out of you since the year of the flood."

"Yes, well, I regret to say that I haven't had as much time to keep up with friends as I'd like. To be quite honest, Ray, American border authorities tend to make a point of being difficult to deal with, which complicates the job somewhat. And the amount of travel does tend to wear on a man after time. Nevertheless, I need only remind myself who I'm doing it for." Fraser motioned at the outer wall of the office, upon which the Queen's portrait hung in full light from the window.

"Yeah, I can see that." Ray smirked, choosing not to mention the suspect placement of Meg Thatcher's photograph to the right of the Queen's portrait. He eyed Fraser's desktop, noticing that Fraser had not dispensed with pictures of the two of them, himself and Stanley Kowalski, or a sixty-pound white wolf-dog - one of the larger pictures on the desk.

Fraser saw what Ray was looking at and cast his eyes floorward. The question on Ray's mind seemed an unnecessary one, not only because of the time that had passed but because of Fraser's reaction.

"Dief's gone?" he surmised.

Wordlessly, Fraser nodded, and Ray would easily have noticed the moisture in his eyes even if he hadn't been looking for it.

"How long?" Ray asked softly.

"Six years. He had been sick and, um....in a great deal of pain. Letting him go was far and away the hardest thing I've done to date. But I made sure to take him home, within sight of where my father's cabin stood."

"I'm sorry, Benny. I'm real sorry." Ray reached out with a comforting pat on his old friend's shoulder, wishing fleetingly that he had been there for Diefenbaker's passing with a more meaningful gesture to make.

"You know, I still see him in my dreams," Fraser admitted. "As often as not, he's right beside a downed suspect, or an old lady crossing the street, or a half-eaten Happy Meal."

Here they shared a chuckle. Ray touched the picture of Diefenbaker again, poring over every memory he had of the ever-faithful wolf, for better or for worse. Then he glanced up just in time to see Fraser unconsciously rubbing an eye.

"You know, I never thought I'd say this, but now I miss him, too."

"It's the way of nature, Ray," Fraser said with a sad smile. "It'll be our turn as well, one of these days."

"Like hell it will. Soon as they bury me, you'll be off running down the first purse-snatcher you can find."

Apart from a soft chuckle, Fraser was silent again. In all six of those years, he still had not quite adjusted to life without Diefenbaker. It seemed unlikely even that any of the puppies Dief had had with Maggie were still alive: but even if one of them, by some miracle, were still hanging on, it simply wouldn't ever be the same. It had occurred to Fraser long ago that no other being had shared such a large portion of his life, not even his parents, not even his friends.

Finally he pulled himself together, took a deep breath and faced Ray. "I suppose in the meantime, a missing person will have to do."

"Yeah," Ray said, turning overtly to business. "I last saw Wichmann about a month ago. He told me he'd be taking a trip up here and asked if I wanted to come with, y'know, visit the old neighbourhood. I had to turn him down 'cause I was right in the middle of summer tryouts. But when he didn't come back and didn't come back, I started smelling a rat."

"That's curious, Ray," Fraser said, scratching his ear. "I've never been able to detect muroid rodentia by scent alone. Perhaps you can teach me some time."

"Yeah, and maybe while I'm at it, I can teach you how to speak English instead of Android before you die of extreme old age," Ray said sarcastically.

"Well, believe it or not, I'm not terribly well-versed in the operation of smartphones. Although since Superintendent Mulroney insists that he - "

"Fraser...." Ray cut him off, glowering. "Shall we dispense with the double-talk already?"

"Ah. I'm sorry, Ray. Please, continue."

Far be it from Fraser to admit it openly, but he was privately amused that Ray still insisted on mispronouncing his name "Frazier." He listened attentively to Ray's story all the same: Erich Wichmann was a very old, but still hale and hearty German immigrant and a member of a veterans' club that met for a few bowling strings two afternoons each week. Wichmann had first come to North America shortly after World War II and a few years of compulsory service in the _Kriegsmarine;_ in his later years, he had worked in an administrative capacity for a large-town police department in the Florida Panhandle. Common ground between him and Ray thus established, they had become acquaintances and then, gradually, friends. By all regards, Wichmann was a very kindly, decent and level-headed old man, hardly the picture of a marauding Nazi so often painted of German veterans by many Westerners.

At age 35, he'd married a like-minded Georgian woman with whom he'd had two children, who by the turn of the century had given him five grandchildren overall. The youngest, a very bright 15-year-old named Alexandra, felt herself born to play basketball, and as such she had been one of the standout players on Ray's youth team for the past two years. She and her mother were the first to notice Wichmann's tardiness, and had departed in search of him. Ray, concerned and wary, kept in daily touch with Alexandra's mother - Wichmann's daughter, Katerina - until two days passed without a word of initiative or response. It hadn't taken Ray half a day to pack and practically blaze his own trail from south Florida to Chicago.

"Have you attempted to contact Mr. Wichmann's daughter since you got here?" Fraser enquired.

"Yeah, but still not a word, and I doubt her phone's gone dead and she hasn't had a chance to recharge it. I don't like this, Fraser. I don't like it one damn bit. Three people from the same family, I'm close to two of 'em, and they go missing within days of each other in the same city. You hear anything?"

"No, I'm afraid not. However, I believe we can find an avenue to widening the search."

**********

"Hey, Diminsky! Go grab another Fresh-Scent for the ladies' room, willya? It smells like something crawled in there and died!"

"Hell, I've smelled worse in pizza parlours," the station janitor replied non-committally.

Ignoring his remonstration, Francesca Vecchio continued a purposeful march up the stairs to the second floor of the precinct. "Jagra, get down to the break room on the double. The cappuccino machine's on the fritz. The lieutenant's not the only one growing bear fangs without it."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," came the laconic answer as Francesca burst through the double doors into the squad room.

"Snap to it, people," she hollered, clapping her hands. "These desktops aren't gonna tidy themselves up, you know!" She stopped dead in her tracks, staring toward the lieutenant's office, gaze intercepted by what to her was an arresting sight. "And will somebody _please_ tell me why we've got a Great Dane the size of an SUV chained to the coat rack?" she demanded, gesticulating at the immense canine with both hands spread. It regarded her with confusion, reclining peacefully, at a loss for why this noisy, effervescent woman objected to its presence: it seemed equally oblivious to the probability that it could easily uproot the coat rack and drag it down the stairs and out into the street.

"It's part bloodhound." This from one of the junior detectives with a desk near the front corner of the lieutenant's office. "Don't you know what great trackers they are?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," Francesca smirked. "You'd better be the one feeding it, mister, 'cause I'd bet any money otherwise it's gonna eat _you_ next." She headed toward her own desk, and if her eyes could shoot daggers she could have disembowelled the detective in a handful of seconds.

"You'll beat the dog to it at the rate you're going," Elaine hailed her from the side door as she entered the bullpen.

"Oh, there you are," Francesca said, her loudly assertive demeanour suddenly washing away. Without missing a beat she plucked a folder from her desk, one of the few desks in the squad room free of clutter or miscellaneous objects. "They got partial prints from the stiff that turned up at the reclamation plant. Her name was Elizabeth Merino. Age fifty-two, last known address forty-one-B Lycoming Street, Williamsport, Pennsylvania. I'm checking with the rail carriers in that area to see if they've sent any trash cars our way recently."

"Good idea. Mona's still waiting for a trace on the car this Merino woman came in. Any next of kin?"

"Checking into that, too. Still no cause of death either, but it's....well, it's not like it used to be when Mort was still with us."

"That's too true," Elaine reflected. "Okay, thanks. Give me a call if you dig up anything else."

"Anything or anyone?" The bellow from the side door caught both Elaine and Francesca cold in their skins. Elaine nearly spilled the contents of the folder on the floor, Francesca sucked in a lung-bursting gasp and caught her breath, whirling toward the side entrance as Ray and Fraser inundated the bullpen as they so often had many years past.

Francesca's hands flew to her mouth in a fit of disbelieving joy. _"Ray!"_ she squealed, stumbling away from her desk. "Oh, my God, Ray!"

"Didn't think you'd ever dig us up again, didja?" Ray said, his face splitting in a grin. The banter gave way to distending laughter as he gathered Francesca into an overwhelming brotherly hug, drawing the undivided attention of everyone in the squad room from suspect to sergeant. Francesca paid no mind to the hug, the attention, or the exchange of cheek kisses that could surely do no good for her fearsome reputation.

In business suit and trench coat, Ray looked every inch a veteran detective, an appearance no different than when he'd been a familiar sight in the squad room. The only thing missing was his shield. In red serge and Stetson, his sleeves now adorned with staff sergeant insignia and six stars to mark his thirty-plus years on the force, Fraser was still as familiar a sight as he'd been for the past two decades. He kept a safe distance, allowing Ray and Francesca to spend their siblinghood but still smiling at the sight of it.

"Geez, you look _great!"_ Francesca exclaimed as she released her hold on Ray.

"Yeah, so do you," Ray laughed. "What are you, makin' a full-time job out of staying young?"

"Practically," Francesca beamed. "When I'm not up here scaring the hell out of the office, or trying to get somebody around here to fix the cappuccino machine...." She turned, firing a penetrating stare out and around the bullpen, hoping to spot and ruffle one of the maintenance guys.

"Well, look who else just breezed back in the door!" Elaine exclaimed, gesturing at Fraser, whose smile had broadened considerably.

"Ohhh, Benton!" Francesca gushed, moving to hug him. _"Caro mio!_ I didn't know if we were ever gonna see you around here again!"

"Hey, you can't keep a pair of good cops down," Elaine reminded her as she shared a reunion hug with Ray. "Especially not _this_ pair."

"Yeah, lifetime pension and I still couldn't stay the hell away," Ray laughed again. He could scarcely believe his eyes. Despite shorter and tighter hair, Elaine looked exactly the same as she had twenty years ago - except that her civilian-aide uniform was a distant memory. Ray's attention ricocheted from Elaine's no-nonsense hairstyle to the holstered gun under her arm, to the silver detective shield clipped to the holster. He was truly impressed - Elaine had entered the police academy shortly before he departed for his undercover assignment in Las Vegas, and he hadn't seen her since: nonetheless, he felt an exponential swell of pride. "But look at you, Sergeant Besbriss! This is a sight I gotta get used to!"

"Yeah, that you'd better," Elaine said, still grinning.

"So, Frase, how's the old home life?" Francesca asked. She had drawn back just far enough to look Fraser in the eye, but her arms were still locked around his rib cage.

"Very well, thank you, Francesca," Fraser replied, releasing his side of the embrace. "As a matter of fact, I recently apprehended a couple of illegal immigrants in Edmonton." He paused, unable to ignore the fact that Francesca seemed bound and determined to make the hug last indefinitely. "Uh, Ray...." he pleaded, motioning at Francesca with his head as he tried to break free.

"All right, Frannie, look, man needs to breathe," Ray said, tapping Francesca heavily on the shoulder.

"Man also needs to let woman enjoy the moment," Francesca said with a sarcastic smirk. Finally she released Fraser, who breathed a perceptible sigh of relief as he straightened his tunic.

"So what are you guys doing back here?" Elaine asked. "I mean, besides reliving the good old days of Laurel and Hardy?"

"Actually, Elaine, I'm here in a strictly unofficial capacity," Fraser said in stiff and formal tones, lifting one hand.

"I think what he means in Canadian is, he misses rescuing every vagrant bum he trips over in the street," Ray said dryly. "But we got missing persons to worry about, Elaine. A whole family of 'em, from south Florida. That means nobody in Chicago would miss them. Think we can see about putting out an APB on them?"

Elaine paused briefly, her gaze shifting. Then she smiled and started to edge backward. "Frannie, you mind if we borrow your desk for a minute?"

"Oh, have at it," Francesca said, waving an airy hand toward her desk. "I gotta go downstairs anyway and see who's playing games on Facebook when they should be doing interviews." She sashayed past Ray and then Fraser on her way to the side door, smiling. "See you around, Frase."

"Francesca," Fraser acknowledged, nodding. He released his breath in another long sigh of relief when she walked past him without touching his arm. Then he turned to Ray with a frown. "Ray, ah....I have to confess, I hear constantly about this book that's entirely made up of faces. Apparently it's widely read and immensely popular. But every library I've scoured from Chicago to Moose Jaw to Inuvik has revealed nothing."

"Oooh, take my word for it, Fraser, this is one book your grandmother would have _never_ let you read," Ray said. "Just gave me a great idea, though."

"Yeah, me, too," Elaine said. She leaned on the side of Francesca's desk, motioning for the chair. "Here, Ray, have a seat."

Without a word, Ray plunked himself down in front of the desk and waited while Elaine logged onto Francesca's laptop. Then she turned it to face him, folding her arms. "All yours."

"All right...." Muttering thoughtfully to himself, Ray activated the first browser he could find and was immediately treated to an eyeful of Francesca's own Facebook page - including several timeline posts from which she had excluded all family members.

"What in the _hell....!"_ Ray was on the verge of slamming the laptop shut and storming downstairs to have it out with Francesca over the omissions when Elaine quickly intervened.

"Ray, Ray!" she exhorted, tapping the shift key repeatedly. "Focus, Ray! What are you looking for, Ray? You are not blackmailing your own sister, Ray!"

"The hell I'm not," Ray grunted as he signed Francesca out and signed himself in, overhearing Fraser's curious _harrumph._ A moment's name-search later, Alexandra's Facebook page filled the screen. The banner depicted a vast Miami beach on a cloudless day, a mild one by south Florida standards: then Fraser peered over Ray's shoulder, squinting at the profile photo. Alexandra Logan was a discerningly pretty girl. Bespectacled, she wore her black hair ramrod-straight and neck-length. Her face was thin, her smile was wide, and her teeth resembled the dual keyboards of a pipe organ. Indeed, she almost reminded Fraser of Angie, Ray's ex-wife - another face long unseen in the urban wilds of Chicago.

"That's one of them?" Elaine surmised.

"Yeah, the only one we'll find on here," Ray said. "She and her mother came up here looking for her grandfather and I haven't heard from any of 'em in days."

"Well, let's see if she checked in anywhere," Elaine said. She glanced at Ray, who still seemed oblivious, as he began to scroll through the timeline of recent posts.

"Very interesting," Fraser said. "So I take it, then, that these, ah, cells dispersed throughout the site...."

"She can share anything she wants with the rest of the world," Ray explained. "Every place she's been, every person she knows. Her mother's not too thrilled about it, but she's got a good head on her shoulders even when it comes to social media."

"I see. You know, Ray, it rather reminds me of a childhood friend of mine, Duncan Mensing. He never did learn when he'd be better off keeping his innermost thoughts to himself - he would write them on Post-It notes and leave them all over school for everybody to read. Poor boy, I thought he'd never hear the end of it from his classmates."

"Sure he didn't change his name to Mark Zuckerberg?" Elaine asked rhetorically.

"I'm afraid the name doesn't sound at all familiar, no."

"Hey, I hate to break up the heart-to-heart," Ray interrupted brusquely. "But are we asphyxiating in Chicago or freezin' to death in the armpit of the frozen North here?"

"Sorry, Ray," Fraser redressed. "Back to young Miss Logan."

"She's got pretty damn good English for a teenager on Facebook," Elaine observed. "Oh, wait. There we go. She posted from the Bryant Park Hotel last Tuesday. Must be where she and her mom were staying. You got an address on it?"

"How the hell should I know?" Ray shrugged. "I haven't been...." He trailed off, staring askance at Elaine. "What are you asking me for anyway, Elaine? Thought you knew every number of every block in every borough."

"Yeah, but this evens things out a bit, don't you think?" Elaine smirked. "Once you pull up the address, you guys can feel free to head on over and check it out."

Ray shook his head with a frustrated sigh as it dawned on him much too late that he'd been had. All those years of piling incessant research work from the most obscure corners of the county records office on Elaine, and now she was getting back at him for it. With considerably greater force than necessary, he began to click the necessary buttons to look up and print the hotel address.

"So what the hell is Frannie still doing here anyway?" he asked. "Thought sure she'd have started her own shoe store by now."

"She did," Elaine said. "Didn't last long. She either couldn't bear to let them out of her sight, or she'd give a customer the third degree for how they'd look with her hairdo."

"So she more or less fell back on the police department," Fraser filled in.

"Welsh did make her the office manager just before he retired," Elaine said. "You know her, she just loves it when people do her bidding. I gotta say, though, it's been different around here the last few years. She wasn't kidding - it's amazing what a halfway decent cup of coffee will do for the place."

"You know, Ray," Fraser offered, "you mentioned your inability to contact Katerina, and you insinuated that she's had ample opportunity to recharge her cell phone if it's gone dead. Now if that is the case, you may recall our successful tracking of a cellular phone by triangulation."

"Well, don't forget, it'll only work if the phone is on," Elaine said.

"Yeah, and there's no need to pretend like she's got fur and antlers, either," Ray added. "That's why God gave us GPS, so we could trace drug dealers and mob guys without havin' to rely on hoof prints all across the Klondike."

"I see," Fraser said flatly.

"What's all this 'we' stuff?" It was now Elaine's turn to stare askance at Ray.

"Hey, old habits die hard," Ray said loftily. He reached over to the printer as it finished pushing out the address information for the Bryant Park Hotel. "Ah, here it is. Thirty-two-fifty-four South Indiana Avenue. Gimme the word, Elaine."

"What word do you want?" Elaine shrugged her shoulders in deep confusion with an even deeper frown. "I could really use a sign here, you know."

At this, Fraser took a long step behind Ray and leaned over, whispering in Elaine's ear. With a sudden expression of enlightenment she smiled, nodding her head. "Ahhh, now I get it. Well, Ray, if it means this much to you, then by the limited power vested in me by a certain unnamed RCMP liaison officer, you're hereby deputised. And may the lieutenant have mercy on your soul."

"Thanks a heap, Elaine," Ray grinned, pushing himself to his feet. "You know, you're gonna love havin' me back. Just think, another twenty years down the pike, you're gonna be tellin' your grandkids the legend of us two old cops kickin' ass in old Chi-town."

"Well, then, don't disappoint me," Elaine warned, giving Ray a friendy punch on the arm.

"Whaddya say, Benny?" Ray said, pushing between Fraser and Elaine to head for the coat rack. "Heigh-ho, Silver?"

"Indeed, Ray," Fraser agreed. "In fact, I'd strongly recommend we allow Elaine to get back to business."

"Oh, hey, no, thanks for the break," Elaine reassured him as Ray pushed between them again, having forgotten the printout on the desk. "I just had a stiff turn up in a reclamation plant on the south side. Not having fun trying to trace it back to wherever it came from."

"Hmm," Fraser said, squinting with piqued curiosity. "Have you been able to establish a time - "

"Have you been able to establish that we got a job to do here?" Ray interrupted, pushing between Fraser and Elaine yet again, grabbing his coat off the rack and pulling it back on.

Though Elaine was inclined to roll her eyes in annoyance, Fraser took the hint. "Perhaps we'll establish another time," he suggested.

"I sure hope sooner than later," Elaine said. She summarily heaved an aggravated sigh as Ray pushed between them a fourth time, aiming for the squad room's main entrance: some things had definitely not changed. He still had a sharp knack for annoying her, and she felt the first twinge of a regret that she'd taken Fraser's advice and deputised him.

"Meantime, let's get a move on," Ray said. "Some closet somewhere is just waitin' for you and your ears, Benny."

"Oh, here's my cell phone," Elaine said, pulling a business card out of her pocket. "I'm shift supervisor till four this afternoon. You guys turn up anything, give me a ring."

"You bet," Ray said, accepting the business card with grace.

Smiling at Elaine, Fraser nodded courteously as he turned to follow Ray. "Thank you kindly, Elaine."

"Any time," Elaine returned the smile. As she watched them exit the squad room, she shook her head wistfully, wondering when was the last time she'd heard that phrase. "Any time at all."


	4. Private Investigating

The concierge at the Bryant Park Hotel was a chatty, outgoing type as befitted his vocation. Just the sight of Fraser's uniform seemed enough to bring a wide, almost fatuous smile to his face, and for a moment he appeared to push the guest register to the back of his mind as he began to shuffle books and papers about on the desktop in front of him.

"RCMP, eh?" he said, looking Fraser up and down. "I'm from the north country myself."

"Really?" Fraser said, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, Regina, born and raised. You ever hear that song by the Arrogant Worms about the Saskatchewan pirates? Makes me homesick, that one does."

"What brought you to Chicago?" Fraser asked curiously.

"Rather not talk about it." The concierge cast his eyes to the desk, his smile fading, and Fraser could tell that it was better not to press him. He sympathised with the man himself, had sympathised with him for decades for reasons of his own that didn't need to be deconstructed at that juncture.

"How about Katerina Logan, you wanna talk about her?" Ray said. Fraser could detect a twinge of his friend's familiar old impatience creeping through his tone.

"She's only got one night left before her registration is up," the concierge said, studying the guest register. "Room three forty-four. She hasn't answered any calls about whether she intends to stay longer. Might want to ask her about that if you see her."

"We will, sir," Fraser promised.

"You see her at all since she checked in?" Ray asked.

"Well, not much. She and her daughter were in and out at odd hours for the first couple of days. Then she came down to the desk earlier this week and asked for the name of a private detective. Seems she and her daughter got separated and she was going out of her mind trying to find her." Not seeing the sudden flint-hard narrowing of Ray's eyes, the concierge hefted one of the folders he had been adroitly shuffling about on the desk ever since he started talking. "I gave her the name of every P.I. in the directory, but something told me she didn't have the patience to contact all of them."

"Seems rather unlikely she would with two of her closest relatives missing," Fraser allowed. "Thank you kindly for your time."

"Hey, listen," the concierge said, some of his smile returning. "We've hosted conventions of all kinds here, in the Abenaki Ballroom. If the Mounties ever wanted to hold a gala dinner or a ball in this city, we're always up for hosting a special function."

"That's very generous of you, sir. I'll certainly pass your offer on to the consular division." Nodding politely, Fraser turned and fell into step beside a smirking Ray, heading toward the hallway at one side of the lobby.

"You mean to tell me Mounties actually have balls?" Ray said, trying not to snicker.

"Well, yes. Very formal events, actually. As a matter of fact, I attended one in Toronto in two thousand ten to honour the new commissioner." Still smirking, Ray nodded his head, most of him glad to see that Fraser hadn't completely lost his naive touch.

Two minutes brought them to the third floor of the hotel, then another minute to the far south end of the hallway. The hotel was very quiet - nary a sound of running water or rambunctious children in any of the rooms. Only a few had the muted sounds of a steamy romance movie to offer.

"I thought for damn sure Kat and Lexa disappeared at the same time," Ray said, scratching the back of his head. "Sure starts my alarms ringing to find out Lexa got lost a day ahead."

"Indeed," Fraser concurred. They reached room 344 to find the 'Do Not Disturb' placard hanging from the knob. Ray fingered the placard and frowned, then turned to studying the doorknob. It was a card-activated lock - no such luck as to be able to pick it easily.

"Hmph." Fraser cocked his head, eyeing the card reader. "You know, Ray, it calls to mind the egg incident - "

Ray needed to hear no more, wanted to hear not another word about that particular escapade. Ignoring Fraser, he released the placard and laid an imposing rap on the door. "Kat!" he hollered, then knocked again. "Kat, it's Ray!"

"She may very well be asleep, Ray," Fraser pointed out. "After all, if she's expended a considerable amount of energy searching for - "

"Fraser, Kat couldn't sleep through the drop of a Stetson," Ray rebuffed. "Besides, how many people do you know who could sleep through a lost kid?"

"I suppose that's valid," Fraser allowed. "I'll be right back." He turned and headed for a short connecting hallway a few paces back, leaving Ray standing at the door looking like the victim of a drive-by car sale.

Fraser rounded the corner and approached the loaded cart of a housekeeper sitting outside the open door to another room. "Excuse me, ma'am," he hailed the housekeeper as she came out of the room. "When were you last in room three forty-four?"

"A couple of days ago," the housekeeper said. "The DND sign's been out ever since. Ain't none of my never-mind what goes on behind that sign, I'll tell you that right now."

"I see." Fraser looked past the housekeeper and stared out the window at the end of the hallway, a look of utter amazement overcoming him. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed suddenly. _"Turtles!"_

"Wha - turtles?" Baffled, the housekeeper turned and looked out the window with him - unable to see anything but a few short buildings across the street and two or three distant jetliners ascending through the clouding sky.

When she turned back, Fraser had vanished. She re-entered the room and looked around the corner, but there was no trace of him. Deciding that it wasn't worth her time to return to the hallway and look for the strange man, she scratched her head, shrugged, and returned to pulling the bedsheets.

So distracted, she had no idea that Fraser was on the other side of the sliding glass door to the room's balcony, pressing his back against the concrete wall dividing it from the next one. He ventured a peek around the drapes, just to make sure that the housekeeper was back to work and suspecting nothing. Nodding to himself, he looked around the section of wall separating this balcony from the next. Carefully - taking his time, moving not nearly as fast as he would have in his prime - he swung himself over the railing, hanging precariously over the street three stories below. Then he reached for the railing on the adjacent balcony, pulled himself with a sharp jerk across the partition, and tried to use his momentum to swing himself over the railing in the same motion.

All at once he stiffened and gasped as a sharp pain in his back caused his right foot to miss its purchase on the balcony. His left foot was too late to take up the slack, and he dropped, barely hanging onto the railing. Grimacing, groaning, he clung to the railing for dear life, far from hauling himself back to the other balcony to regroup and retry. It was a do-or-die predicament, his Sam Browne belt below the level of the balcony's surface, his feet dangling in empty air, and the stabbing pain in his back hampering his movements.

He tried to yell for Ray, but there was no way Ray would be able to hear him, much less help him, from the opposite side of two doors, one of them locked. Suddenly it dawned on him that the sharp pain all radiated from one point - the now decades-old bullet wound that none other than Ray had inflicted by accident. He'd learned to live with that bullet lodged in his spine over the years, but more than one RCMP medic had warned him that it would take its toll on him one day. In one whirlwind moment it occurred to him that if he lost his grip, if he fell to his death, and if Ray found out that wound had anything to do with it, he would never forgive himself, just as he had never forgiven himself for causing that wound in the first place. This was no way to die, especially with the spectre of his friend's suffering hanging over him.

Fraser groaned loudly and started to slide one hand, then the other, along the railing toward the building, pulling himself closer to the wall. The pain washed up and down his back like raging white-capped waves. Finally he drew close enough to the wall to strike out with one leg and gain purchase on the wall with the sole of his boot. He pushed, fairly hollering now with pain and effort, until he hooked one elbow over the railing. Another heave, and he lifted his left knee, the throbbing ache almost preventing him from bracing it against the balcony surface. He shifted, heaved his right foot onto the surface, and mightily pushed himself upright, swinging himself over the railing onto the balcony outside room 344.

For a long, tense minute he stood, breathing heavily, waiting for the pain to subside as he leaned against the wall. He didn't bother looking down to see how narrowly he had brushed with an untimely demise. The phrase _I'm getting too old for this_ crept into his mind, but he pushed it straight out again, unwilling to think about it. The bullet wound he'd learned to live with long ago: advancing age, however, was something you had to learn to accept all over again, day after day. As long as he had more important things to think about, he would continue to force the notion to the back burner.

Taking a deep breath, he straightened his tunic, stepped to the sliding glass door and opened it, glancing briefly around the room as he headed toward the hallway. He opened the door to find Ray still standing there, staring at him like he had a pair of giant black man-eating eagles perched on both his shoulders.

"Shall we?" Fraser said, motioning toward the interior of the room.

"How the hell did you get in there?" Ray asked, too flummoxed to think of anything else to say.

"Well, that's not important, Ray. What is important is that this room is totally vacant. Perhaps it's worth a look around." He stepped aside, allowing Ray to enter, shaking his head in disbelief.

 _Quiet but classy_ described both the hotel and the room exceptionally well. The furnishings were typical - two queen-sized beds, a bureau, a couple of chairs and a desktop with a curved edge built into the wall, with a lamp, a coffee maker, a power strip and an amenities folder all neatly placed on top. The wood paneling covering the walls looked like it had seen better days. Unfinished, it looked like a better fit to a rustic hunting lodge than a midtown hotel.

"You know, Benny," Ray said with a reflective smile, "I'm not gonna lie, I really do miss this stuff."

"Such as kicking in doors without valid search warrants?" Fraser said, sharing with Ray a wry chuckle.

"How about trying to shoot our way out of that meat locker?" Ray grinned. "Might as well have farted at a hurricane for all the good that one did me."

Reminiscing time through and done, they began to circulate around the room. Ray moved slowly across toward the desktop, squinting critically at the appliances arranged on it: one of them definitely looked out of place. Meanwhile Fraser pulled a handkerchief from his tunic pocket and moved to the nightstand between the beds. Nothing jumped out of the drawer to deprive him of his nose cartilage. He bent over the bed to his left, inhaling deeply of the linens.

Ray looked toward him, noticing the change in his posture and his perspiration from as recently as outside the door. "You okay, Benny?" he asked.

"Yes, Ray, I'm fine."

"You're looking a little stiff all of a sudden. Don't tell me the air in this city is getting to you."

"Most emphatically not. In fact, Ray, the air quality considered, I'd say no one's been in this room for some time. These bed linens are freshly washed, but still crisp and with no residual scent of laundry detergent. Both these beds have been made up and unused for at least three days."

"So Lexa's been missing at least that long. And nobody from these parts would miss her _or_ Kat."

"So it would seem." Fraser started toward the bureau, watching Ray in his peripheral vision as his old partner stepped over to examine the desktop.

"Here's the phone." Ray reached for the large silver-cased iPhone lying at an odd angle next to the coffee maker and carefully pressed the power button, waiting for the screen to light up: it remained as dark as a starless sky. Then he glanced at the power strip and bent over to grab the charging cord dangling over the edge of the desktop.

"It's dead as a doornail," he announced. "She never even plugged it in, or else she didn't have a chance."

"Or she unplugged it and then left it behind." Fraser had opened two cracked drawers in the bureau to see if anything was missing. "Look at this, Ray."

Ray turned toward him, aghast to see him poking through the contents of the drawers: he was sifting through the jumbled clothes without flinching, a glaring abnormality to his usual sense of courtesy. "Oh, c'mon, Fraser, what the hell are you doing?" Ray demanded disgustedly, tossing up his hands. "Since when do Mounties get to go pokin' through a woman's unmentionables, anyway? Don't they still have personal privacy laws in Canada?"

"Unfortunately, it seems privacy laws all over North America are subject to change without notice," Fraser pointed out. "However, Ray, you'll note that such indescribable belongings are somewhat jumbled, and some of them appear to be missing along with one of the suitcases. The disorganisation and the forgotten phone indicate that Katerina left in a hurry, which means she knew Alexandra was in trouble and not just wandering around the city unsupervised."

"So she didn't come back for the phone because....?"

"I shudder to conjecture, Ray. It appears Katerina took some bare necessities before she left, which suggests that she knew Alexandra wasn't in the city at all. They aren't just missing. I think they've both been kidnapped."

"Great," Ray sighed. "So with both of them off the air, that means God only knows what happened to Erich. You think maybe Kat made contact with one of those P.I.s before the body snatchers invaded?"

"It's a possibility, and I think I know just who to enquire with. However, I feel there's something you ought to know about first."

**********

Fraser could have sworn he heard Ray's teeth grinding all the way from the building's main entrance up the center hallway. He couldn't exactly fault him - they were on their way to meet someone who had a frictional enough rapport with Ray to bring the entire Department of Justice to a scorching halt. Ray, for his own part, had been in a singularly grumpy mood ever since Fraser mentioned the name. He glanced around the cavernous main hallway, trying not to think about a towering casino hotel in which he'd spent only a year of his life but felt as if he'd blown away many more.

At last Fraser drew up to a halt in front of a cherrywood door with a large pane of frosted glass. Ray disregarded the address number on the door, instead scowling at the name and title painted beneath it.

"You sure about this, Benny?" he muttered.

"Yes, Ray, I'm positive. What troubles you?"

"We got a history with this guy. Now maybe you've enjoyed it a lot more than I have, but if this is the only thing you can think of, don't come cryin' to me if he and I come to blows."

"Understood." Fraser's tone was as impassive as his visage. Without another word, he knocked.

"Yeah," came the voice from within. Fraser entered first, cracking a broad smile at the face of the man leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on his desk, nose in a newspaper.

"Hello, Stan," he said with the slightest of laughs.

 _"Fraser!"_ Forgetting all about the sentence he had been reading, Stanley Kowalski flung the newspaper flat on the desktop and jumped to his feet. "Hot damn, long time no see!" He strode around the desk, his gait, his figure and his attire exactly the same as when Fraser had first met him. Like both Fraser and Ray's, though, his face was another matter - his cheeks had furrowed somewhat, most of his hair had turned grey and he had slicked it back. The trim goatee he sported was the same shade of grey, and his forehead had creased in a few places, but he still perfectly fit the name "S. RAYMOND KOWALSKI" above the "PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR" nameplate on his desk.

"You look well," Fraser observed as he entered into yet another friendly embrace of reunion.

"And you look like....well, like a Mountie," Kowalski said dryly, pointing at Fraser's attire. He looked past him, and his smile dropped slightly but not completely as he made eye contact with Ray.

"How's it going, Vecchio?" he said, putting forth his hand.

"Aah, same-old, same-old," Ray said. Fraser was gratified to see him smiling as well as he and Kowalski shook hands. "How's the P.I. life treating you?"

"Better than the P.D. life, for a fact," Kowalski said. He waved at the two overstuffed chairs in front of the desk and loped back around it, seating himself. "So what can I do you for, guys?"

"Missing persons," Ray said before Fraser could get a word in edgewise. "Three generations of 'em, all from Florida. First one fell off the radar probably a month back and his daughter and granddaughter just a few days ago. Any word on the street about 'em?" He waited, crossing his fingers that Kowalski had heard something from Katerina before she disappeared, but it wasn't long before his fingers came undone.

"How old's the granddaughter?" Kowalski frowned.

"Fifteen."

"That ain't good."

"Since when is it ever good when _any_ kid goes missing in Chicago?" Ray didn't care how rhetorical the question sounded: it seemed a fitting response to Kowalski's understatement. For his own part, Kowalski made no attempt to hide his sneer.

Fraser chose this moment to jump in before the water had a chance to rise. "Well, Ray, are you aware of any enemies Mr. Wichmann has in this area? Someone with enough of a grudge to target members of his family along with himself?"

"Fraser, Erich went straight to Florida after the war," Ray insisted. "If he ever even saw this city, he didn't even stick around long enough to choke on the air."

"So what would he come to Chicago for, then?" Kowalski piped up, staring penetratingly at Ray for an answer.

"It beats hell out of me," Ray admitted. "All I know is he told me he was coming up here for a couple of weeks to meet a friend and then he fell off the scope. Now he's got his next two generations gone in sixty seconds tryin' to find him."

"Unfortunately, we seem to be stuck in a vicious circle," Fraser offered, "wherein we won't be able to track down either party without locating the other. Mr. Wichmann didn't by any chance give you his friend's name, did he?"

Ray shook his head. "Looks like I'm the only one in all of Chicago who even knows they're missing."

"And what good's that gonna do 'em if they're bein' held for ransom in some run-down warehouse on the south side?" Kowalski pointed out. "You guys got any leads at all? Any idea where to start?"

"No, Stan, I'm afraid we haven't the faintest clue," Fraser said bluntly.

Kowalski smirked. "Yeah, just like the good old days."

"May I ask what leads you to believe that they're being held for ransom in the southern regions of the city?"

"Well, it's just an in-house rumour, but Amber Alerts have spiked around here in the last couple months," Kowalski said. "Practically every P.I. from Fort Wayne to Milwaukee is sharing info with each other. Never seen anythin' like it. When I first started this business, it was every P.I. for himself. Now we're like, I dunno, like the United Nations."

"A widely diverse conglomeration of independent governments collaborating on a matter of mutual interest," Fraser reflected. "Seems rather appropriate, Ray, don't you think?"

It was several seconds before it occurred to him that both his detective friends were staring at him as if he'd sprouted an extra head. Raising his eyebrows, he glanced from one to the other. "Am I not correct?"

"Nah, you're plenty correct," Ray said, waving his hand. "Just a little too, uh...."

"Canadian," Kowalski filled in.

Fraser could tell where they were going, but he ignored the banter. "In other words, Stan, this young girl is by no means the first to have gone missing."

"Not even in the first dozen, as far as that goes."

Fraser abruptly looked up, startled, cocking his head to one side at the sound of harsh, guitar-and-keyboard-based rap music coming from no apparent source. Kowalski, recognising the theme music from _The Shield,_ put on a pinched expression - somewhat of a hybrid smirk and grimace as he watched Ray pull his cell phone out of of his inside coat pocket.

"Vecchio," Ray answered, rising and moving to a corner of the office.

Fraser hummed curiously at the phone's strange mode of alert and faced Kowalski with a slight smile. "I very much appreciate you seeing us, Stan. These are very close friends of Ray's and he's deeply concerned for their well-being."

"Any of 'em got names? I mean, I mean, one of 'em sure sounds like a Von Trapp family singer from here, but it's a damn sight easier to put a face to a name when you actually got one."

"That's very true. Katerina Logan is the daughter of Erich Wichmann. We were informed that she had sought the services of several private investigators in this area and we had hoped you might be among them."

"Nope. Name doesn't ring a bell." Kowalski shrugged his shoulders, not apologetically but not apathetically either. "But it sounds to me like these people got a, like a black hole or somethin' whirlin' around 'em. Like whoever comes lookin' for 'em is apt to disappear right to the same place."

"Be that as it may, Stan, I wonder if it's possible you could check with your contacts and find out if Katerina's name has come up. Her father has been missing for some time now, and as you pointed out, it's an ill tiding - especially now that she and her daughter are lost as well."

Ray chose this moment to complete his phone call and repocket the phone, crossing back to his chair in two long strides. "That was Elaine," he announced. "Another stiff just turned up in that reclamation plant on the south side. She wants to meet us down there and see if it's anybody we're looking for."

"Well, in that case...." Fraser got to his feet with nary an effort and smiled. "Tallyho!"

"'Tallyho'?" Ray repeated with a deep, disbelieving frown.

Fraser balked and shifted his feet regretfully. "I'm sorry, Ray. It means 'let's ride'."

"Yeah, but 'tallyho'? Who the hell says 'tallyho' anymore?"

"A guy who rides horses for a livin', who else?" Kowalski said, making a wry gesture at Fraser.

"Would you care to join us, Stan?" Fraser offered.

"Nah, I'll stick around and make those calls. Better we work this from a couple different angles. Besides, I got no idea what kinda shadows you two are chasin' after."

"Right, then," Fraser acknowledged. Reaching for the desktop, he plucked a business card from the holder next to Kowalski's nameplate. "We'll be in touch. Ray?"

As Fraser headed for the door, Ray regarded Kowalski with a dry grin. "You're gonna miss it and you know it, pal," he advised.

"Not for long," Kowalski rebutted. "I sure won't miss him stickin' his tongue everywhere it's got no beeswax bein'."

Ray chortled and turned for the door. "Later, Stanley," he called over his shoulder.

**********

Fraser had entirely forgotten what it was like driving with Ray when they were working a case, but five blown stop signs and three warningless left turns later, he felt a percolating desire to lecture Ray on the origins, history, and usage of the stop sign the next time he ran one. Alas, he never quite got the chance before Ray slewed the Riviera off South Torrence Avenue and onto the access road to the reclamation plant. Already they could see the blue and red lights flashing in the distance as they bounced over a poorly maintained railroad crossing and headed for the storage shed near the lake front. Several cuts of open-topped garbage cars were spotted next to the concrete platform alongside the shed, whose entire south end was surrounded by police cruisers, unmarked cars, crime scene investigators, and a hearse.

Though already alerted to their arrival, the perimeter guards might well have moved aside anyway at the very sight of the great red spot marching toward them from the parked Riviera. Ray ducked under the tape first and then Fraser, mounting the steps to the platform, seeing Elaine engaged in animated conversation with a character wearing a white hard hat and a work shirt. As they strode closer, Fraser could discern an utter lack of cordiality in the conversation.

"Listen, Sergeant, this is the second day this week you've shut down this whole sector," the hardhat complained, tossing up his hands. "This is getting ridiculous. How many times do I have to tell you I've got work to do out here?!"

"Sir, I understand your concern, but how many times do I have to tell you this is a crime scene?" Elaine retorted. "And if it happens a third time and you keep trying to interfere, a worksite shutdown is gonna be the least of your problems!"

"Are you threatening me?" the plant manager demanded, hands on hips.

"Am I going to have to to get your cooperation?" Elaine shot back. She glanced to one side and the plant manager with her - the red serge, even in peripheral vision, was impossible to miss.

"Good afternoon," Fraser said with a pleasant smile.

"And who the hell are you, the Red Baron?" the plant manager snapped.

Fraser took a considering pause before answering. "No, sir. Baron Manfred von Richthofen was shot down and killed toward the end of the First World War, by a Canadian fighter pilot, I might add. My name is Staff Sergeant Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father, and for reasons that really don't need exploring at this juncture, I remained attached as a liaison with the Canadian consulate. Although, nowadays actually I'm more of a travelling liaison officer for other reasons that need not be deconstructed. I beg your pardon, Elaine - is this a poor time?"

"Uh, no," Elaine said offhandedly, somewhat taken aback by Fraser's protracted monologue. "It's as good as any."

"Oh, what's this?" the plant manager said. "You can't police this damn city well enough yourselves and so you have to get unsuspecting Canadians to do your dirty work for you?"

"Sir, I wonder if you wouldn't mind stepping over to that yellow line over there," Fraser said, indicating the crime scene tape.

"Full well I'd mind! I'm trying to get my work done here! I can't afford to lose another day letting these people traipse all over the property!"

"Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, sir, but I respectfully submit that the person at the center of this crime scene couldn't afford to lose his or her life, either," Fraser said frankly. "Now I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to defer to Sergeant Besbriss's authority while she attempts to gather evidence pointing towards the persons responsible."

"You're all the same on both sides of the border, aren't you?" the plant manager growled, waving his hand scornfully. "Got nothing better to do than get in a working man's way? Don't be surprised when the third-district alderman raises hell with you about this."

"Well, sir, the fact of the matter is that neither Sergeant Besbriss nor the alderman need get involved. A few more in-depth interviews with your employees would very likely raise the curiosity of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. I've noticed many of them distinctly lack personal protective and respiratory equipment, which in an environment such as this would raise significant risks to their health later in their lives." Noting the sudden flash of fear and loathing in the manager's eyes, Fraser continued to tighten the screw. "Also I believe a track inspector with the Federal Railroad Administration would be less than enthused about the condition of that crossing over there, which, being within the bounds of your property - "

"All right, all right, enough already." Clearly and soundly defeated, the plant manager cut Fraser off with an aggrieved wave of his hands. "Just - just do whatever it is you're gonna do so I can get my guys back to work."

"Thank you kindly for your cooperation, sir." Fraser held the irate man's gaze until his back was turned and he slunk off toward the shed, grumbling loudly about lost time and falling another day behind on production.

"You haven't lost your touch," Elaine smiled. "How are things going for you guys?"

"Well, we've made some progress. We were at Ray Kowalski's office when you called. He offered to gather some more information from his own sources." Fraser glanced briefly past Elaine to see Ray conferring with several of the crime scene investigators. "However, we've determined that Alexandra Logan went missing at least a day or two ahead of her mother. And Ray - well, Ray Kowalski, that is - has reason to suspect that she's a victim of a rash of recent kidnappings around the southern tip of the lake they call Michigan."

"We've heard about those. You know, the strange thing is that - " Elaine broke off as her partner approached from the main entrance to the storage shed, carrying a small plastic bag marked "EVIDENCE" and containing a jewelled ring.

"Hey, Elaine?" Hernandez called out. "Medical examiner's just about done in there, but we're going to have another distinguished guest in the morgue tonight. There's no apparent cause of death. Meanwhile I figured...." Her voice trailed off as she regarded Fraser, standing regally before Elaine with his hands clasped behind his back, tall and solid in the red serge and Stetson. The bag containing the ring fell all but forgotten to Hernandez's side.

"Well, hi there," she said with a small but growing grin.

"My partner, Ramona Hernandez," Elaine said to Fraser. "And this, Ramona, is the Mountie."

"Benton Fraser. How do you do," Fraser said pleasantly, shaking Hernandez's proffered hand.

Her eyebrow lifted all of an inch. "Sorry, did you just ask 'who do I do'?"

Flustered, and unable to recall at what point he'd misspoken, Fraser blinked and then shook his head rapidly. "Oh, uh, no, ma'am. I, uh, actually asked 'how' do you do."

"Fine. Just fine." Hernandez had subtly inched nearly a foot closer to Fraser in the short time they'd been speaking. "Elaine's told me all about you, but I can see now she didn't tell me everything."

Elaine smirked, remembering Fraser's scarlet reaction fondly. "So what have you got there, partner?" she asked, indicating the evidence bag.

"Oh," Hernandez said, quickly remembering herself. She lifted the small plastic bag to dangle it within clear view. "Found this on the body. I thought I'd have it checked out for an engraving." Even as she studied the ring, she couldn't seem to tear her gaze away from Fraser, smiling at him ever so slightly.

"If I may ask," Fraser said, "do you have an identity on the victim?"

"No positive I.D.," Hernandez said. "But he was knocking on death's door as it was, by the look of him."

A serious, stricken look overcast Fraser's face as he calculated the odds. "Oh, dear," he murmured. "Elaine, would you mind if I...."

"Go ahead," Elaine nodded. "That's why I asked you guys to come down here."

"Right, very well then. _Ray!"_ Fraser hollered at his own partner, starting toward the storage shed at a dead stride. "We're needed!"

"Yeah, so who the hell are we now, John Steed and Mrs. Peel?" Ray demanded as he ran up alongside Fraser. "'Cause, you know, the uniform really sets it off for you."

"I think Elaine had ample reason to summon us here, Ray," Fraser said grimly as he marched into the storage shed.

"Oh, my God, that's _disgusting!"_ Ray exclaimed, pulling a handkerchief out of his back pocket and covering his nose in a futile effort to protect it from the stench. "And what reason was that, Fraser? Just to discover such incredible new smells that the likes of George Lucas himself never even dreamed them up?"

"No." Fraser approached the examination team near the corpse, beside which a gurney had been spotted, awaiting its grisly load. "To identify the victim."

He drew to a stop, staring at the body of the elderly man lying next to a trash container. Ray moved up alongside him and then past him, his steps slow, the handkerchief falling to his side and a dark cloud of recognition covering his visage.

"Aw, no," Ray groaned. He sighed and squatted beside the body, turning his gaze upward. "It's him, Benny. It's Erich."


	5. Old Habits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In loving memory of Fliss (or 'fliss3uk'), a well-known, much-loved DueSer and a wondrous friend to many, who succumbed to cancer a couple of days ago. I never had the pleasure of knowing her myself, but I still sense that a brightly burning light has gone out in our world. May her memory be everlasting.

Though at first annoyed by the delay, the medical examiner resigned himself to it upon finding out that it was no longer up to him to identify the body. Instead he turned to putting together his preliminary findings, all too glad to retreat from the stench of the storage shed. Elaine and Hernandez found it barely tolerable themselves as they stood side by side over Fraser and Ray, both of whom now squatted beside the corpse, although Ray couldn't seem to stop twitching with discomfort as his aging knees protested the stress. All the same, he wrote it off as trivial compared to the death of a friend, who despite having little time left on this mortal coil, hardly deserved to be taken before his number came up.

"You said this guy was on his way to Chicago, right?" Hernandez said.

"Yeah, that's the last I heard," Ray answered. "But he never told me who or what he was coming for."

"When did you last see him?"

"About a month ago down in Florida, right before he left."

"Did he say how long he'd be in town?"

Ray turned his head upward, directing a sidelong stare at Hernandez from under his eyebrows. "What, you figure he always wanted to die in Chicago or something?"

Hernandez bristled, but she wasn't about to upbraid Ray in the presence of her partner and a ridiculously handsome Mountie she'd only heard of by dreamlike description. "So he never mentioned that he might have been making a side trip, then."

"A side trip to where?" Ray frowned.

"This is the second body that's turned up here in the last couple of days," Hernandez said. "Seems they both got here by the same steel road." To Elaine, she explained: "I got a trace back on the rail car that Elizabeth Merino came in. It was loaded at an industrial site up near Massena, New York. Took three days to get to the Norfolk Southern yard over by West Columbus and then another day to get spotted here."

"So Mr. Wichmann most likely didn't die in Chicago," Fraser surmised.

"And despite the look of him, he probably didn't die of natural causes, either," Hernandez said.

"That's for damn sure," Ray said. "Erich was eighty-eight years old and never acted a day over thirty. But suppose he was killed just a couple of blocks away and then thrown in the rail car?"

"No," Elaine dissented. "He was buried in the debris, which means he was dumped in the car before it was loaded. The equipment operators said they first noticed the body while they were transloading into these containers here. Was it the same kind of debris Merino was found in?" This to Hernandez.

"Exactly the same," Hernandez nodded.

"So there's a good chance both bodies came from the same place?" Elaine queried.

"These cars come in from all over," Hernandez said. "Probably better get a trace on them as well just to make sure."

"Ray," Fraser said thoughtfully, "you did say Mr. Wichmann was planning on meeting a friend in Chicago. He didn't happen to mention where."

"Nope, nothin'." Ray's lips were tight as he stared at the pale face of the dead man - one of the few senior citizens he'd ever really found his way clear to befriending - remembering the twinkle in his blue eyes and the way he used to pop off flawless American idioms in his deep, rich German accent. Ray found himself wracking his brain for who could possibly want to kill a harmless old man like Erich Wichmann, and why.

"Hmm. Elaine, you said the body was found in one of these containers?" Fraser asked.

"Yeah," Elaine said. "Not sure which one, but a loader operator noticed him on top of the pile after making a drop. They're full of construction debris, for the most part."

"I see. Well, perhaps a random sampling will provide us with some insight into his last hours." Fraser slowly drew himself back up to his full height, more from thoughtfulness than from any physical difficulty, and stood still, staring off into the rows of garbage containers stretching back to the far end of the shed. With eyes of steel, he abruptly jolted into motion.

"Whoa, whoa, what's your hurry?" Ray demanded, spreading his hands as he stood up straight.

"Well, Ray, if we're to prove foul play in Mr. Wichmann's death, we haven't much time to find a clue." Fraser paused only for a second or two, glanced around to get his bearings, and then took off at a brisk march into an ever-deepening pool of Ray's chagrin.

"Oh, no, Fraser, not this crap _again!"_ Ray bawled as Fraser made a beeline for a gigantic trash container, the one closest to the body, sitting near the east wall of the shed. "Boy, some things never change, huh? No matter how many years apart, you can still vicariously ruin every suit I've ever owned romping in rubbish lookin' for God only knows what!"

"Perhaps God only knows, but in His good time, so will we," Fraser said resolutely as he began to climb the outside of the container.

"Is this why you guys used to come back to the station smelling like old cheese every other week?" Elaine asked.

"What ever gave you that idea?" The sarcasm in Ray's voice was tactile. He strode after Fraser, waiting for him to lose his footing and fall flat on his back, ready to catch him if it happened - but Fraser's inherent and all-pervading Mountieness prevailed as ever. "Fraser, c'mon! You're gonna be lucky if _you_ come out of that damn thing alive, and I sure as hell am not diving in there after you!"

"That's quite all right, Ray," Fraser said nonchalantly as he heaved himself over the side panel of the container. "I expect this will only take a minute." He vanished from view, leaving Ray apace in frustration, powerless to do anything but listen to him rooting around in the container, throwing debris from side to side, and digging through mound after mound of garbage and filth that Ray was relieved he couldn't see.

"He's a piece of work, isn't he?" Hernandez said, shaking her head slowly, though Elaine couldn't tell if it was in admiration or disbelief. "Is there anything else you haven't told me about this character?"

"You mean besides that he sews his wallet to his underwear?" Elaine said dryly. "But I never did understand why he does that, until now."

"Fraser, what in the hell do you think you're even gonna find in there?!" Ray shouted. "You know, in another twenty years it wouldn't surprise me if there's Inuit tales about the dumpster-diving Mountie written in the permafrost!"

"I must say, that would be a singular honour," Fraser's voice wafted out of the container. "But this is interesting, Ray. Mingled with the rebar and fragments of concrete and drywall, there appear to be bits and pieces of chain, hydraulic hose, fluid, conduit....and the chain fragments are showing a certain amount of corrosion, almost as if they've been immersed in salt water for some time."

"Okay, great, so they're all rusted over, big whoop. Any of 'em happen to be covered in blood and fingerprints?"

"Well, actually, no, Ray. Mr. Wichmann's body shows no signs of external trauma, so it hardly seems worthwhile to check for fingerprints. But I did notice that the lining of his jacket was worn, and that there was an incongruous seam present on the left side, as if he had a hidden pocket between the lining and the outer shell."

"All right, that's it," Ray fairly burst with exasperation. "I'm outa here. I'm not gonna stand around all day and listen to you beat your gums together while you play Indiana Jones in a garbage disposal."

"I'll only be another moment," Fraser replied. "In fact, I.... _aha!"_

"Oh, now what?" Ray demanded, throwing up his hands. "What, did you find the Hand of Frankenstein all over again? Used most recently to choke the guy to death?"

"As appalling to Canadian historians as that would have been, no." Presently the Stetson popped back into view at the top edge of the container, followed by Fraser's face and his left hand, his right one making unseen motions from somewhere out of view. "But I think we're about to uncover a heretofore unwritten chapter in Mr. Wichmann's life."

Fifteen seconds and Fraser once again stood on the floor of the shed, patting the right hip pocket of his tunic. Ray was still too irritated to do anything but storm away from him, but Elaine and Hernandez had just started edging closer to see what he had when a voice rang out from the open end of the shed.

"Sarge!" The voice belonged to a senior patrolman standing in the open loadway, gesturing backward over his shoulder. "P.I. Kowalski's outside. Said he's got something for the Mountie."

"There's your cue," Elaine said to Fraser. "Keep in touch, willya?"

"Of course," Fraser nodded.

"Hashtag lucky break," Ray grunted as he fell into step beside Fraser, heading toward the loadway.

They found Kowalski standing on the concrete platform outside, rubbing his nose. "Well, geez, you guys, it's about time," he groused. "I don't know what's sufferin' worse, my nose or the tuna-fish sandwich I had for lunch."

"Just don't upchuck it, whatever you do," Ray advised. "Can't have this one copying your whole last week's grocery list from it."

"That," Kowalski understated with pointed fingers, "is _so_ gross." Despite the sentiment, he knew in his heart of hearts that Ray was absolutely right.

"Well, unfortunately, Mr. Wichmann appears to have met an untimely end," Fraser said, nodding toward the shed, where the gurney bearing the corpse was being rolled toward the hearse by the medical examiner's team. "What of his relatives?"

"Well, I didn't find the names you were lookin' for," Kowalski said. "But I found out where and when this all started."

"And?" Fraser pressed.

"There was one of them big-city comic-book conventions at the Bryant Park Hotel third weekend in August. Last afternoon of the convention, three kids went missing, all girls between fourteen and seventeen. They were all from outa town, so, uh, parents couldn't figure out any place they'd be and nobody else missed 'em."

"So we have a pattern," Fraser said. "Katerina and Alexandra were staying at that same hotel when they disappeared."

 _"And_ they weren't from around here," Ray added.

"So what's all this have to do with the old guy gettin' whacked?" Kowalski asked, nodding at the body being loaded into the hearse.

"Still too early to tell," Fraser mused. "And even more so in light of the first victim who turned up here this week. But it's all connected somehow, and we may be able to find that connection tomorrow afternoon at five o'clock at the Museum of Science and Industry."

"Okay, whoa, hold on a second, Fraser," Kowalski butted in. "Look, I know the whole clairvoyant Mountie thing never gets old, unlike us. But since when are you solvin' a case by predictin' the future right down to the place and time?"

"Well, I understand your skepticism, Stan, but one need not be a soothsayer - only a reader." With that, Fraser opened his tunic pocket and pulled out a hardcovered book he had evidently discovered in the trash container. Its jacket still shone like new, but its edges, along with the edges of some of the pages, had been prematurely worn. With somewhat of a flourish Fraser opened the front cover and showed it to his friends: on the inside cover someone had written in neat cursive script, _Chicago M.S.I. 26.09.14 17.00._

"So he's meeting someone," Ray surmised. "Or....he was."

"How do you know he's the one that wrote it?" Kowalski said. "I mean, it's like a foreign code."

"Foreign, yes. But as far as encoding," Fraser said, pointing at the inscription, "Mr. Wichmann was a German immigrant, and this note is typical of European date and time format. Date, then month, then year, with twenty-four-hour time."

Ray shot Fraser a condescending glare. "It's his _handwriting,_ Benny."

"Ah." Fraser closed the book, frowning at the cover. _Wolves of the East Coast,_ by Peter Lerschen. The cover art depicted a wartime German U-boat lurking submerged off a night-lit silhouette of the New York City skyline. He opened it again and leafed over the publication data, noting with interest that the book was copyrighted 2014 - no more than a few months old.

It was another possible connection, but before Fraser could broach it, Kowalski piped up again.

"Okay, listen, I say we go over to the hotel and bang on some doors, maybe boot some body-snatchers outa bed. Figure if anyone's been stayin' there awhile...."

"Also very likely," Fraser agreed. "The concierge was quite accommodating, so it seems unlikely any of the hotel staff is involved. But long-term guests might be worth checking out."

"Hey, I got a great idea," Kowalski said, grinning smugly. "You got a place to stay yet, Vecchio?"

"Nice try," Ray said, forcing his return grin. "I'm crashin' with Frannie. May be risking our lives, but she and her kids have been with Tony and Maria the last few years now ever since that last divorce. And Ma...." He stopped speaking and cast his eyes to the platform. Neither Fraser nor Kowalski pressed him. Kowalski hadn't kept up much with the Vecchio family since he and Fraser returned from their Canadian adventure, but Fraser knew that Ray's mother had been convalescing under her children's care for the past three years.

"Okay, I'll keep diggin'," Kowalski said finally. "What are you guys gonna do?"

"Actually," Fraser said, "I think perhaps we should all continue digging."

Both Rays stared at him, taking note of the esoteric smile he wore. "Diggin' what, a caribou mass grave?" Kowalski enquired.

"Well, we've found Mr. Wichmann, but his death means that his daughter and granddaughter are still in grave danger," Fraser said. "If all the abductees are from out of town, there's a chance some of them may have come from Canada. I may be able to make a few calls myself to the consular division of the RCMP to learn the circumstances. And if the two of you will do me the honour of all of us joining forces, I think we'll find that it will take an impossible amount of opposition to stop us from getting to the bottom of this."

Lowering the book to his side, he held out one hand. Kowalski was the first to grab hold of it. "I dunno about you guys, but I can't wait to go for another mad-ass ride on a lake boat or an airplane."

"We've already gone dumpster-diving," Ray grinned as he clapped one hand on top of theirs. "You ask me, we're already into it. But Fraser, I'll tell you right now, if you get us locked in another rubber room, all bets are off!"

"That didn't stop us either, Ray," Fraser said with an even broader grin. "Justice will out!"

"All right, let's do this," Ray said, nodding firmly.

"Game on!" Kowalski chimed in. With a loud _mmph!_ he released Fraser and Ray's hands, balling his own into a fist. "Shake, bad guys, shake!"

Fraser was unable to suppress a laugh as it dawned on him what had just happened for the very first time. Two murders and an undetermined number of kidnappings had proved to be the perfect catalyst - drawing Benton Fraser, Ray Vecchio, and Ray Kowalski together, to work an investigation together, to get to the bottom of multiple crimes together and still enjoy a river of laughs along the way. Even their pursuit of Holloway Muldoon and his flunkies hadn't kept them together for long, not like this.

Still, there was one person in the world Fraser wished he could have alongside him and his friends: even if she was just a phone call away, there could be nothing like having her along for the ride.


	6. Home and Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tissues are recommended for this chapter. Just sayin'.

_"Kiiiiiiids!"_ Francesca hollered as she pushed through the front door with her handbag slung over one shoulder and her other arm full of grocery bags. "Look who just dropped in out of the clouds!"

 _"Uncle Ray!"_ Alonzo, all twelve-year-old, rough-and-tumble, five-and-a-half feet of him, was the first one to pounce. Ray barely had a chance to set his own armload of grocery bags aside on the floor next to the door before impact, remaining stooped to fling a hug on Alonzo just as enthusiastic as his own.

"Heya, Lonz!" he guffawed as Alonzo crashed into him, clapping the boy heavily on the back. "Geez, kiddo, look at you! You gotta stop this growin' business, you know that, don't you?"

"No power in the 'verse can stop me, Uncle Ray," Alonzo beamed.

Ray laughed, tousling Alonzo's hair. "Hey, that reminds me," he said, reaching into one of the grocery bags. To Alonzo's delight, he pulled out a T-shirt printed with a promotional image of the entire "Firefly" crew.

"Oh, _shiny!"_ Alonzo beamed. "Thank you so much!"

"Any time. I was gonna save that till Christmas, but this is kind of a last-minute trip, so I figured, what the heck."

"I like how Jayne looks in this one." Alonzo seemed to burst with pride as he held the T-shirt in front of his chest to see how it would look on him. "Like he's saying, 'Find somebody else to mess with if you know what's good for ya.'"

"Wear it proud, kiddo," Ray said. He looked past him to see Gina, Francesca's oldest, standing in a discomfiting, somewhat provocative pose with her hands in her pockets. The fourteen-year-old girl's teeth seemed like they could each fill their own smile, as gigantic as hers was, contrasting starkly with her thick mane of black hair. You couldn't see her hair over the horizon - but other than that she looked just like Francesca had thirty years ago.

"Hey, Uncle Ray," Gina said, moving forward to hug him. "This is cool, Mom didn't even tell us you were coming."

"First she heard of it, too," Ray admitted. "So how's school? Do I gotta whip out the badge and the gun on any punkers yet?"

Gina's smile faded somewhat, but then she laughed. "Uncle Tony's got that covered. You're not, like, seriously still carrying those, are you?"

"Aah, it's kind of a long story," Ray said, waving his hand dismissively. "Uncle Tony gonna be home soon?"

"Depends on how much shopping Aunt Maria wants to do. Y'know, they usually go to the stores together every day."

"Well, you don't feel left out, do you?"

"Oh, God, no," Gina laughed. "Bianca and Emma are coming up this weekend - you know they're, like, totally joined at the hip? Coming up to see Nonna and go shopping uptown."

Ray didn't miss the fractional drop of Gina's eyes as she mentioned her grandmother, but neither did he miss the sparkle as she spoke of imminent retail therapy with her cousins. He decided not to press the kids about their grandmother: he'd already had that discussion with Francesca on the way home, and he dared not open any cans of worms by mentioning their father. Instead he chose to enquire on one last family member.

"How about Arabella? She okay?"

"She doesn't really change much," Alonzo confessed, looking away. His expression was more faraway than usual, and Ray could tell that he wished to be able to relate more intimately to his eight-year-old autistic sister. "Still spends most of her time in her room drawing and doing origami. At least I think that's what it is."

"Yeah, the eye of the beholder," Ray reflected. He stopped on the verge of heading towards the kitchen and then turned back for the groceries. "Oh, hey, Gina - got this for you, too." With no attempt to conceal it, he handed her a beginner's guide to veterinary medicine: knowing what an animal lover she had already become, he wasn't disappointed by the elation that lit up her face like a lake boat's searchlight.

"Ooh, sweet!" Gina gasped, seizing the thick book in both hands. _"Grazie, Raimondo zio!"_

 _"Prego, nipote,"_ Ray grinned. Patting Gina on the cheek, he ruffled Alonzo's hair one more time and then repaired to the kitchen, where Francesca had almost finished putting away the perishables. He'd tried to be the best uncle he could be, distance being one factor and Francesca's divorce conditions being another. She claimed up and down that she still didn't know why on God's green earth she had ever married the guy, but Ray had never had much luck getting her to admit that he'd had a fair amount of Fraserness in him - but not enough to last.

Still, her ex-husband's part in her story was over, and between her kids and his mother, Ray had had serious thoughts in the past about pulling up stakes in Florida and moving back to Chicago for the family's sake. It warmed his heart that both Gina and Alonzo were so pleasantly surprised to see him, especially now that Erich Wichmann had turned up dead, reminding everyone of the vulnerability of age and youth alike - and still the prevailing mystery of his death was _why._

With a loud and satisfied sigh he leaned on the breakfast bar in the middle of the kitchen. "It's damn nice to see the family again," he said. "Still kinda feels like home."

"Just wait till dinner tonight," Francesca needled him. "If that doesn't remind you of home, nothing will." She peered past Ray into the living room, where Gina was plopping down on the sofa with the book and Alonzo was booting a simulation game on the computer. "No wonder they were so happy to see you. Honestly, Ray, how come you've never had any kids? You're a _lot_ better with them than you ever thought."

"You need an answer?" Ray said morosely.

"No," Francesca murmured. "But Ma still brings it up every now and then. I don't know if she's in denial or what, but...."

"Well, maybe I'll go tell her myself and see if that gets it across," Ray decided.

"Hey, if you wanna take a crack at it, it's all you. She's upstairs in the in-law quarters."

Ray nodded and turned to head down the hall to the stairs, Francesca at his heels. On the second floor, she set off in one direction toward her own bedroom to check on her youngest offspring while Ray headed for the in-law quarters, situated above the garage. The quarters consisted of three rooms - a small sitting room and library, a kitchenette with a three-quarter bathroom on one side, and finally a large bedroom at the outer wall of the house.

It was here that Ray came upon his long-unseen, frail, ancient mother sitting on a chaise by the front window. A walker with a small seat stood beside the chaise, and the room, in keeping with his mother's outrageous standards of neatness, was perfectly organised and spotless. She gazed out the window, seeing something far beyond the horizon, perhaps far beyond anyone's understanding but her own, her rosary hanging loosely in her hands. Ray reflected that Wichmann, despite his stronger constitution, had been about the same age. Pray otherwise as he might, this could be one of his last chances.

"Hey, Ma," he called.

Despite the wizened condition of the rest of her body, Cerelia Vecchio's head was just as hale and hearty as ever. She looked up at him in a snap, her eyes wide and bright with recognition, her smile even more so as her oldest son strode into her view for the first time in God knew how long.

 _"Raimondo!"_ she gasped and gushed, reaching out for him. _"Mio figlio,_ you still know how to make your mother's life! Come here, come here, let me look at you!"

Ray needed no more encouragement as he sat on the chaise and embraced his mother, exchanging a double cheek kiss with her. Her face had become terribly wrinkled and jowled, but her lips on his cheek, and her hands caressing his back and his head, felt no different than they had twenty or thirty or fifty years ago.

"Ah, it's great to see you, Ma," he said, smiling broadly.

 _"Santa Maria,_ son, what on earth happened to your hair?" Cerelia asked in disbelief, rubbing his exposed pate.

"Oh, c'mon, Ma, I've been losing my hair for more than twenty years," Ray chuckled. "How's it anything new?"

"Well, so tell me what _is_ new. How's Stella? You marry her yet?"

At once Ray's smile vanished and his eyes dropped. "Aah, I don't really wanna talk about her."

"Aren't you two getting along?"

"Not to put too fine a point on it, no."

"Ah, _mi dispiace,_ Raimondo. But she's got no taste, I say, no taste at all."

"Yeah, what makes you say that?"

"Well, any woman who's got a problem with any son of _mine...."_ Cerelia said indignantly.

Ray rubbed his lip uncomfortably. "Look, um...." he muttered, trying to steer the conversation in a brighter direction. "Ma, I'm gonna be in town for a few days, maybe a week. I'll be stayin' here. I got a big case - first one I've had in years. So we can talk about this some other night, huh?"

Patting his cheek, Cerelia smiled. "Raimondo, any time you want to talk, you come and see me, _capisce?"_ she told him. "Any time at all, son."

"Thanks, Ma. See you later." Kissing her on the cheek again, Ray arose and headed back for the second floor of the house.

He encountered Francesca coming out of her bedroom halfway down the hall. "Whoever said Ma won't outlive all of us should be dragged out into the street and shot," he quipped.

"Yeah, I think that was Tony," Francesca said dryly. "Wanna let me shoot him first?"

"He hasn't gotten that bad, has he?" Ray chortled.

"Just like he was twenty years ago, only less lazy and more grumpy. Sure you wanna stay here?"

"Never hear the end of it otherwise," Ray said, gesturing back toward the in-law quarters. He looked past Francesca through the still partly-open door to the bedroom, seeing her youngest sitting at a small desk, drawing endlessly on a tablet. "Arabella doing okay?"

Francesca took a deep breath. "Well, she has her days. She smiled when I told her you were here. You really don't know how happy my kids are to have you for an uncle." She looked over at Arabella, who was engrossed in her incomprehensible scribbling.

"She can be like that for hours sometimes," she sighed. "It sucks, Ray, it really does. I love her more than anything, but it's so hard for kids like her to get any recognition anywhere. I mean, Martin and I divorced because he kept putting his damn job ahead of his family and it wasn't even that great of a job, but I gotta wonder if he didn't want it because of how he felt about Bella." Francesca lifted her hands helplessly, and Ray could tell she was close to tears.

"Well, if he did, it wasn't any fault of hers," he said gently, rubbing her shoulder. "But like I told Fraser one time, lots of things change people. Time's the big one. People are gonna come around sooner or later, Frannie. Just as long as you don't give up on reminding them."

Francesca blinked, trying to clear away the tears, but then she smiled. "I always knew you were a softie deep down."

Together they walked to the other end of the house and onto the balcony overlooking the property boundary with the next house over. Tony and Maria had made out pretty damn good in their middle age, Ray thought to himself. Nestled in the Park Ridge neighbourhood - not far from their old address in Norwood Park - the house was not the picture of wealth, but for comfortable suburban living it suffered very little competition.

"Hope you don't mind sleeping on the couch," Francesca said. "Ma was already in the in-law quarters when I got the divorce and moved in with the kids. Tony and Maria let us take over most of the upstairs and moved into the den in the basement. Just wish Bella could have her own room, but space is, well, it's not like it was when we were all still in Dad's house."

Ray nodded in understanding. Even after finding out that his father's old house had burnt, he had never bothered to have it repaired: he, Francesca, and Maria had long ago decided it was just as well, sharing as many unpleasant memories of that house as they did along with the pleasant ones. He stared off toward Norwood Park and wondered idly what kind of house had been built in its place.

"I didn't think it was gonna be like this, coming back to the old neighbourhood," he said finally. "A lot's changed. I mean, look at you. You think your kids are happy to see me, how do you think I feel seein' them and you?"

"Look at _me?"_ Francesca repeated. "Ray, I'm on my second divorce and this time I've got the three of them to worry about. Martin doesn't even pretend to be part of their lives anymore. I don't know what the hell I was thinking when I married him."

"Yeah, well, Martin better hope and pray he never bumps into me on the street. They're great kids, all of them. You ask me, you had a lot better luck with the family. Me, all I got...." Ray's voice trailed off and he stared away, glared away really, as if in defiance of the glare from the dipping sun. Francesca touched his arm. Rather than go someplace neither of them wanted to, she steered the conversation down another avenue.

"You got plenty. I mean, you moved to Florida, ran your own business for a while, now you're doing something you love even more than being a cop. And you're making a difference in a lot of kids' lives doing it. I think you made out a lot better than I did. I mean, fifteen years ago, would you have done what you're doing right now? Dropped everything and come charging up here looking for your friend?"

"Fat lot of good it did him. He's dead, and for all I know, Kat and Lexa could be not far behind."

"Yeah, but you're here. Nobody else knows about them, Ray, but you do, and you care about them enough to come all the way up here and turn Chicago upside down to get answers. You can put up the tough-guy front until your knees give out, but you really care about people. You're still making a difference. Don't you give up on them either."

Ray stared sidelong at Francesca, half a smirk wrinkling his face. "You don't really think I've gone _that_ soft, do ya?" he said cynically.

"Hey, you're the one who said people change," Francesca laughed. "I mean, why do you think I'm not chasing Fraser all over God's creation anymore?"

"I always thought it was 'cause you couldn't ride a horse to save your life," Ray teased.

"Oh, _please!"_ Francesca spluttered, pushing him playfully. "I'd rather get lost down at County Records than have one of those things toss me off on my head! You know that's the one thing that really worries me about Gina becoming a vet?"

"What, that she might make you learn how to ride one of these days?" Ray goaded.

Shaking her head, Francesca scoffed away from him. "You still don't let up, do you?"

Chuckling, Ray stood up straight, folded his arms and took a deep breath of the evening air as the sun dipped below the first of the treetops at the edge of the neighbourhood. "Maybe it's just as well I don't," he sighed. "If I do, someone's gonna get hurt. Maybe not just some _one."_

"Want me to boot somebody at the NCIC out of bed tomorrow morning? I bet they know one or two things about these missing kids."

"Sure. Of course, knowing Fraser, he's probably already chasin' the bad guys halfway across the lake. On foot."

 

No sooner had they set foot on the first floor of the house than Alonzo's outburst filled the entire level. "Uncle Tony, guess who's here!" he hollered toward the front door.

"Oh, God," Ray muttered. Francesca couldn't suppress a laugh and had to make haste into the living room, not only to cut the laugh loose but to get out of the line of fire. Indeed, as Tony marched into the kitchen and spun toward the unfamiliar figure in the hallway, it didn't take him long to relieve the figure of all strangeness.

"Ray of sunshine!" he bellowed, flinging out his arms.

"Tony-bologna!" Ray answered. "You never call, you never write!"

"You never put on an ounce!" Tony shouted, pointing at Ray in an almost accusing manner. "Maria, come talk to this brother of yours and find out his secret for me, would ya?"

"Who, Paulie?" Maria demanded as she hefted two full armloads of shopping bags from almost every known retailer in the city into the back corner of the kitchen.

"Do I _look_ like Paulie?" Ray spluttered.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact, you do!" Maria didn't even acknowledge that she hadn't seen Ray in years - she just treated him as if he'd never left the household. "Frannie, what the hell happened to my flat iron? It wasn't in the car this morning and I had to go in to work lookin' like a poodle!"

"Well, if you ask me, that's an improvement!" Francesca hollered from somewhere out of sight. Ray shook his head, trying to convince himself that he actually missed this. He stopped trying when Tony stepped over in front of him with arms folded.

"What brought you back to the fold, anyway?" Tony asked. "Sick of Florida already?"

"What do you mean, already?" Ray said. "I've been down there for fifteen years, man!"

"That's it?"

"Yeah, that's it, but what'd it take you, fifteen minutes to get sick of it?"

"Sure got sick of smelling decay everywhere I went," Tony replied. Sidling past Ray, he headed to the hallway. "Maria, c'mon, your clothes aren't gonna put themselves away, you know!"

"Yeah, and how long have I been tellin' you the same exact thing?" Maria retorted. Ray stayed in the kitchen, listening to the five-way banter, arguing, and comebacks that were part and parcel of being a Vecchio. Again he shook his head and laughed. Maybe a week-long dose would be enough, but if it took him any longer to solve the case, he'd better start preparing an insanity defence for any offences he might commit before he knew it.

**********

The sun had almost set by the time Kowalski got back to his office. Braving a stiff wind, he hurried from his old black Pontiac GTO to the back door of the building and removed his glasses almost as soon as he got inside, vigourously rubbing them with a handkerchief to prevent fogging. Two minutes and he had reached his office to find that he'd left his desk lamp on and a mess of newspapers on the desktop. He cursed quietly to himself, acknowledging the imminent spike of his electric bill. At least he could try and tidy up a little before the cleaning lady showed up over the weekend - otherwise he'd never hear the end of it.

He picked up his desk phone and punched in a number, waiting, hoping the guy on the other end hadn't already gone home for the night.

He was not disappointed when he heard a connection click after only two rings. "Skatic," he said. "Yeah, it's Kowalski. Hey, listen. Has the FBI got anything on teenage girls missing from, say, Valparaiso? No, Valparaiso, Chile. Of course Indiana, what's the matter with you? Okay. How about South Bend? Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's fine. I'll be here. Okay, talk to ya. Goodbye."

He hung up the phone, sat behind the desk and leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. His mind drifted back to the question of who would be sick, twisted, maybe even desperate enough to kill a man who didn't have much longer to live as it was. The only answer that occurred to him was that someone had killed Wichmann to silence him - but about what? What did it have to do with the missing girls - anything at all?

Still, Wichmann had been taken before his time. It didn't matter that he was only two years shy of his ninth decade on this earth: he could have been on the eve of his third or his tenth, and he would have died prematurely nonetheless. Kowalski leaned forward and sighed, thinking for the hundredth time about how life was like a glass jewel in its precious fragility. Then he reached over and pulled a blank sheet from a ream of printer paper to one side of the desk, plucked a pen from the middle drawer, and paid no mind to the absence of lines on the sheet as he set the pen on it.

_Dear Mom,_

_Hope this finds you in good helth and spirits._

_You'l never guess who came to my office today. Remember the Mountie I was hanging around with the time you and Dad came to see me at the police station? He and his old partner just showed up again on a missing persons case. I haven't had one like this in a long time. One of the people thei're looking for just showed up dead. He was real old but I guess somebody thout it was time to bump him off anyway._

_So thats kind of why I wanted to write while I still have the chance. I miss Dad and I wish he settled down sooner after he retired, then maybe, he would still be here. I'm happy Fraser is back cause he helps fill the void. But their's still something missing I don't know how to explain it but I bet you know what I mean._

_Me and Fraser and Vecchio all made a pact to find the killer. Fraser coud probably chase him down and lock him up all by himself but it woudn't be the same as it will be with all three of us. We'll nail him and make him sorry for what he did. This old guy coud of made it to 100 years old if that guy haden't killed him. Just makes me think how easy any of us could die any time and don't get a chance to say some of the stuff we shoud of said to some people. I never got that chance with Dad. Their's alot I wanted to say to him like after I gradguaited and he and you moved away, I just never did get around to it. I still got good memories but I wish the not so good ones coud of gone down a little easier._

_Don't worry about me Mom, I am ok. I hope you are too. Sorry I haven't got to come down and visit more offen cause now I know I really shoud. Maybe when we solve this case I'll hitch a ride with Vecchio back to Florida and come see you for a cupple days...if he and I don't kill each other first._

_I don't know why we are so easy to kill it dosen't matter if we are soldiers or cops or retiries. Any one of us coud die any time, I don't understand the reason for it. Dad was only 70 he shoud still be alive. I don't know why people think they can kill other people by accident or on purpus and not have to live with what they did. I wish you had been there the night I found out Beth Botrelle was innocent and diden't have to die cause of me. Maybe this case I'll finally make some sense of it. If I do I'll come visit you first chance I get and let you know. Take care of yourself Mom. Hope I see you soon._

_Love,  
Ray_

Kowalski reread the letter three times, wondering if he'd said everything he meant to, maybe even said something he hadn't meant to. Nothing lunged out at him. With another sigh he blinked his moistened eyes, folded the letter in thirds and stuffed it into an envelope. As he addressed it and fixed a stamp, he hoped in earnest that he hadn't been dishonest with his mother about getting to the bottom of the case alongside his two companions.

**********

"Well, I'll have to check around a little bit, turn over a few rocks. But I'll get as many names as I can and try for some interviews with the parents. How does that sound?"

"Sounds excellent from here." Fraser smiled against the phone's mouthpiece. "You know, as dire as the circumstances are, I've been looking for a case like this for a long time. Something to bring everybody back together, the world's finest sister included."

"Sounds like it's hunting season from here." He could hear the answering smile in Maggie MacKenzie's voice, and he could only imagine her beautiful blonde-framed face in the consular section office in Ottawa. She had only just recently been transferred there after several postings in southern Alberta, where she had primarily maintained contact with other RCMP liaison officers in the north central United States. Somehow she and Fraser were always ships that passed in the night when he was in that part of the country, but he tentatively allowed himself to hope that this was about to change. He wondered what Kowalski would say to finding out that he'd brought Maggie in on the investigation as well.

"Hey, speaking of parents," Maggie said. "You haven't seen Dad around at all, have you?"

"No." Fraser's tone dropped with regret. "It's been a long time, Maggie. Much as I miss him, I'd like to think he's in a happier place now with my mother."

"That's too bad. I was looking forward to seeing more of him. Only saw him the once, you know. But it wasn't even that long before all that to-do with Muldoon. And that was the last you ever saw of him, wasn't it?"

"Yes." Fraser paused for a long moment, then sighed. "It's good to hear your voice."

"Likewise. I'll give you a call if I dig up anything."

"Thank you kindly."

There was a slight hiss over the line as Maggie inhaled. "Love you, brother," she said finally.

"Love you, too," Fraser smiled. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, then hung up the phone and leaned to one side in the chair, rubbing his lip. Superintendent Mulroney was away on personal business and Fraser had the consulate to himself. On nights like this, when the consulate was dark and silent and all he could do for the sake of human contact was call up a fellow Mountie at another consulate or even a distant relative like Maggie, he regretted not searching out one of Diefenbaker's descendants. That wolf, for all his stubbornness, aggravation and even outright insubordination, had been the most loyal companion he'd ever had in his life, and he still missed him all these years later, selective hearing and all. Fraser couldn't deny that he was over the hill himself - it had been a long time since he'd done any such thing as leap hotel balconies through thin air with nothing to catch him but pavement three stories below. His back still hurt, that bullet wouldn't let him forget the worst hurt he'd ever suffered in his life. He'd thought the pain unnatural at first, but soon it occurred to him that at his age, with a nineteen-year-old wound still snapping at his heels, it was anything but unnatural. He had fewer years ahead of him than behind him, and deep down, he lamented the thought of having so few people he could relate to for whatever remained.

Enfolded in the quiet darkness of the consulate, Fraser made off to his office. Everything neat and tidy, nothing budging from its spot, one day to the next. He cared very little for change. He could navigate the consulate and the office in complete darkness, knowing exactly where every furnishing, every box, every irregularity in the floorboards lay. Reaching out ahead, he located his desk lamp at once, turned it on and sat down.

There he sat for a long moment, lost in reflection over the past couple of days. It had been a long time since he'd gotten involved in such an intriguing case, and longer yet since he'd had either Ray at his side, much less both of them. Three missing persons and two murder victims, apparently totally unrelated but nonetheless showing up in the same place within days of each other, Ray Vecchio knowing exactly where one of them had come from and Ray Kowalski with a solid idea of where all this was leading. Despite Kowalski's comment about getting old, the three of them might well be old- _er,_ but still a long hike, a trans-border flight, and a cross-country train ride away from _old_ \- certainly not too old to solve one more case together.

Fraser eyed the book he had discovered, now sitting in the dead center of the desk. He had skimmed it briefly, just enough to get the gist of it. Now he opened the front cover, reread the inscription, and then thumbed quickly through the pages again. Very interesting, he thought, and well worth checking into further. The book was a well-written and finely detailed account of German U-boats operating uncomfortably close to the eastern seaboard during World War II. Erich Wichmann had served in the _Kriegsmarine_ and had settled in America after the war - at least that was all Ray knew about it. Fraser, for his own part, knew from numerous historical accounts that the RCMP had apprehended not only German spies but the crews of some abandoned U-boats at several points during the war. The more he turned it over in his mind, the more likely he found it that Wichmann had been amongst those U-boat sailors, had in fact reached North America _during_ the war instead of _after._ Perhaps his death could be laid to something as simple as a seventy-year-old grudge held by some Allied veteran, nothing more than a coincidence with his daughter and granddaughter being abducted. But still, so many answers still lying somewhere out of sight and out of mind, waiting until they wanted to be found.

And Benton Fraser knew just where to look.

First things first. Striking a match, he lit the kerosene lantern sitting to one side of the desk next to Diefenbaker's picture. Then he turned off the desk lamp, reached into one of the upper drawers of his desk and pulled out a small, hidebound, yellowed book. Slipping on a pair of reading glasses, he opened to a random page and flipped back to the beginning of the entry, imagining that long-gone gravelly voice as if it was once again issuing from the closet.

_June 18, 1978._

_A determined Mountie travels fast, but word travels faster. Buck Frobisher was badly injured the other day chasing down an American bank robber who'd fled across the border into British Columbia, killing no fewer than ten police officers on his way - including two of our own. By all accounts, it was a terrible clash of the titans: a veteran Mountie versus a hardened criminal for whom senseless violence was a way of life. Buck won the day, but at the stiff cost of a severe knife wound to the leg. I visited him in the hospital today; he was in excellent spirits. A man like Buck won't be kept down by a knife wound, even one so deep as this. Just the same, a visit from an old friend can't have done him any harm._

_Ben turned eighteen two months ago. He's a man now, and he's rounded into a better man than I could possibly have dreamed, but there are the days when I think he became one a long time ago. He's already told me his desire to join me for a few tracking exercises. I know what that means. And as proud as I would be to see him standing tall in red serge under a blue northwestern sky, encounters such as Buck's bring a terrible apprehension down on me. What will happen when Ben faces a violent criminal for the first time? If a bank robber and murderer of similar temperament ever crosses his path, will he survive to bring him in? And if I'm still here when it happens, can I congratulate him on a hard-fought and well-earned victory, or will I be forced to watch my boy suffer?_

_I know none of these questions have an answer, nor will they till the time comes. God knows Benton is a strong, capable young man. But since losing Caroline, I don't think I've ever been so attached to another human being, and human beings are such terribly fragile creatures..._

_Well, the future is not mine to see. My heart tells me I've done all I can to prepare my son for this world. Not as much as a decent father should, perhaps. But come what may, whoever appears and shares his life, he'll be just fine. The rest of it, another day will tell._

With nary a sound, Fraser closed the journal and placed it reverently back in the desk drawer. Word travelled fast indeed: it hadn't taken long at all for the word to spread when Buck Frobisher passed away after suffering an intestinal failure two years prior. Fraser had counted himself grossly fortunate not to be far from the hinterlands of the northern Yukon when the word reached him, and being able to attend Buck's funeral.

He smiled sadly to himself. His father had been dead for twenty years, but these journal readings, not to mention his visitations from beyond the grave, made it feel like only a fraction of that time. Still, sitting alone in his home-office with only the flickering lantern and the journals for companions, Fraser passed so very few of these nights without remembering Robert Fraser and Caroline Pinsent, their spirits reunited, disappearing forever into a mine shaft in the wilderness of eternity.

He rubbed away a tear, but then he shook himself. Even with his father, Buck Frobisher, and Diefenbaker gone for good, he wasn't alone anymore. Ray had returned. They had matched up with Ray - Stan - well, other-Ray - and they had a case to solve. They, and he, had purpose, places to go and undoubtedly lives to save. With a slight sigh Fraser looked at the other pictures on his desk. One picture of himself and Ray Vecchio when the latter still had some hair left, both of them grinning broadly at the camera-shop owner they'd been helping as he took the snapshot. Another picture of himself and Ray Kowalski, the latter with his sunglasses pushed halfway down his nose and outright smirking at the camera. Even a picture of both Rays, standing back to back, their guns held at the ready.

Fraser slowly nodded his head as he eyed the photographs and thought back over his father's words. As always, the wisdom of those words spoke to him far clearer than the words themselves. In the company of his two closest friends, the spark still flashed. As long as he relied on his friends along with his sister and himself, the answers would not stay hidden for long.

Inspired and encouraged by the thought, Fraser slept soundly that night.


	7. Odds

"Ready for this?" Kowalski asked, narrowing his eyes to near slits.

"I'm always ready," Ray answered, grinning sardonically.

"Then let's get on with it."

Half bent over, facing each other, they glared at each other with gazes of fire for a long, tense second. Then Kowalski braced his feet to either side and flung the basketball at the floor.  
It bounced directly into Ray's hands, whereupon he bounced it back - then immediately lunged as Kowalski dodged him. He dashed around behind Ray, bouncing the ball constantly from hand to hand to keep it out of his adversary's grasp. Ray hung tenaciously alongside him as they scuttled toward the edge of the gym, waiting for Kowalski's hold to falter and allow him to sweep the ball away.

"So you knew this guy Wichmann, what about this Merino lady?" Kowalski asked. Clinging to the ball, he jerked to a halt and backpedaled before Ray could catch him.

"Never heard of her," Ray replied, running after him. "But it sure looks like she and Wichmann both got whacked in the same place and then ended up in Chi-town. Gotta be a connection in there somewhere."

"Good one, Vecchio. You figure that out all by your lonesome?"

"Well, it's not like we need Fraser to do everything." Ray leaped, trying to intercept the ball as Kowalski twisted around and hurled it toward the hoop. The ball danced briefly on the rim of the basket, then finally settled and dropped through, inciting a triumphant grin from Kowalski and a quick grab by Ray.

"Fraser ever tell you about the time a bunch of his Eskimo pals came to visit and built a sweat lodge at his place?" Ray asked with a grin as they bounced the ball back and forth. At once he jumped to one side, zigzagging across the gym as Kowalski tried to gain position in front of him. "Never forget him sweatin' himself silly while visions of blackbirds danced in his head. He's gotta be the only man alive who can track down a bad guy just by seeing things."

"Well, at least he didn't hypnotise you and everybody else in the room to figure out who really did it," Kowalski said. He all but threw a half-Nelson on Ray in an effort to claim the ball, but Ray ducked and sideslipped past him, then launched the ball at the hoop. This time it fell cleanly through the basket, bounced once and landed neatly in Kowalski's hands.

"If we gotta resort to crazy Eskimo tricks of _any_ kind to figure this mess out, we may as well go freeze our asses off in Numbfoot or whatever the hell that new glacier's called," Ray said wryly as they exchanged the ball. This time Kowalski whirled around and drove straight for the hoop, with Ray hot on his heels. "You get anywhere with that hotel lead?"

"Nowhere good." Kowalski paused to fake a shot and quickly bounced the ball away from Ray, hurrying to keep up with it, blowing hard as he exerted more and more of his energy. "Staff wasn't too forward about it, but....near as I can tell, nobody at the Bryant Park's been stayin' there longer than a week. So I figure...." He paused to catch his breath with a huge gulp of air. "There's at least another one or two Amber Alerts poppin' up around the southern tip of the lake every week. And like I say, all the victims are from outa town. So s'pose these bad guys are, y'know, movin' from hotel to hotel, city to city? I figure we oughta rattle Elaine's cage some time today, like, find out where these kids got snatched from, try'n draw out a pattern from it." He pitched the ball from the far corner of the gym: it fell short and ricocheted off the hoop, falling within Ray's reach as he ran to catch it.

"Good one, Kowalski," Ray said with a mocking smirk. "You figure _that_ one out all by your lonesome?"

"Yeah, and you know what's funny? I did." Kowalski shot a toothy, sarcastic grin right back at him as they exchanged the ball again.

Taking a deep breath, Ray bolted straight forward and past Kowalski before he could catch him. "Love to know what the FBI has to say about all this," he panted. "If they even give a flying rat's ass....I bet we've gotten a hell of a lot farther in two days than they have since this whole thing started."

"They're still tryin' to track down the first three," Kowalski scoffed. "I figure whoever's doin' this is playin' it pretty clever. All the kidnappings are so close together the FBI ain't got the time or the manpower to look into every one. And they sure as hell won't admit it to the local cops."

"That still leaves a hell of a big piece missing from the puzzle. It's Wichmann himself - the big piece that doesn't fit." Ray ran a full circle around Kowalski, dribbling the ball all the way, keeping it well out of his opponent's grasp and keeping him guessing as to when he would take the shot. "I mean, is it just a coincidence Kat was up here lookin' for him right before he turned up dead? Or is it totally unrelated?"

He ceased circling to catch his breath and held a steady position at the edge of the court, bouncing the ball from hand to hand. Kowalski, shaking his head, crouched in front of him, dancing sluggishly about, searching for an opening to snatch the ball out of his possession. "See, now you're makin' me think. Didn't anybody ever tell you not to think so damn hard? Go crazy if you do." All at once he charged, successfully catching Ray off guard. He grabbed the ball in mid-bounce and made a mad dash toward the hoop.

"Guess that explains everybody's favourite Mountie." Ray caught up with Kowalski in only a few seconds, but was too late to block his throw. The ball sailed high out of his reach, dropped through the basket and bounced off toward the edge of the court as Ray hurried to catch it. "But as long as we're tryin' to establish a pattern, are they repeating it now? You said the first three got grabbed from the Bryant Park. Now here it is a month later and Lexa's number four." He wiped sweat from his face with both hands, looking forward to a swig of water.

"Mebbe it's like that thing with Muldoon," Kowalski said, exchanging the ball with Ray once more. "I can still remember when that whole thing was comin' to a head and, uh, Fraser was lookin' through his old man's journals for a clue how to find the guy. Figured out that Muldoon - " he paused for a second as Ray bounced the ball between his legs, caught it in his other hand, spun around, and made a beeline for the hoop - "was, like, doublin' back on himself. Nobody expected him to be someplace he'd already been."

"Yeah, that's great, but Muldoon's still doin' life in the armpit of the frozen North," Ray puffed. Avoiding Kowalski, he ran straight under the hoop, leaped up straight in the air and backhanded the ball through the basket, emptying his lungs in a loud wheeze as he landed. "For all we know, him and Gerrard are cellmates....and they're plottin' revenge on both us and Fraser."

"At their age?" Kowalski scoffed. "Get real, Vecchio. Them guys ain't thinkin' crime anymore, they're thinkin' Geritol. Besides, I never even said it was Muldoon. All's I said was, whoever's doin' this, maybe they're stealin' his doubling-back idea. They didn't count on somebody showin' up who knew this kid Alexandra and would know it if she went missin'."

Ray allowed himself to smile slightly, out of Kowalski's view, thinking of what Francesca had told him the previous evening. Rampant kidnappings over the past month or so, gone unchecked thus far because nobody knew the victims from Adam and Eve. But a difference had just been made - and that difference was him.

"Frannie tell you to say that?" he enquired as they exchanged the ball.

Rubbing away sweat on his short sleeve, Kowalski abruptly dived sideways, dashing for the edge of the court as Ray went after him. "I ain't talked to Frannie in God knows how long. Been a long time since we was, uh, like pretend family."

"Better a pretend family than a damn crime family, I can tell ya that," Ray wheezed.

Kowalski took advantage of Ray's more laboured breathing. He twisted around, keeping his back to Ray, until he had pivoted almost 360 degrees. He hurled the ball at the basket several feet away. "What about, uh...." As the ball rebounded, he allowed his voice to trail off, still uncertain himself about how to pose a question as potentially touchy as it was important to him. "You, er, still good with Stella?"

Ray stopped dead in his tracks. He stood stock-still at the corner of the court, staring at nothing, allowing the ball to bounce and roll away underneath a spectators' bench at the side of the gym. Kowalski jogged to a halt beside him, staring expectantly at him, awaiting a response. The answer at first came in the form of a glare that could have rent solid concrete.

"Let me ask you somethin', man," Ray said finally. "Why'd you and she split up?"

"Priorities." Kowalski briefly glanced away, and Ray didn't miss it. "Her mind was on the job. Mine was on the family. Which we never even had. She was, uh, she was the first one to file for the divorce."

"You ever find out what she didn't tell you?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"About the side dish she was enjoyin'."

"Oh, hey, no." Kowalski spoke shortly as he pointed both fingers into Ray's face. "That had nothin' to do with it."

"The hell it didn't," Ray growled. He stalked past Kowalski, heading toward the ball where it rested under the bench near the door.

"Stella wouldn't do that!" Kowalski snapped, unthinkingly defending his erstwhile spouse.

"Maybe not to you, she wouldn't," Ray shot back.

"Yeah, well, if she was runnin' around on you, what the hell were you doin' in the meantime?"

"Well, for that matter, what about _you?_ You know as well as I do, cuz, old habits die hard."

"Yeah, why don't you tell that to _your_ ex-wife," Kowalski sniped.

Ray flared, marching toward him with murder in his eye. "Don't go there, pal."

"Why, 'cause you know I'm right?" Kowalski retorted, throwing up his hands.

"'Cause it's none of your damn business what happened between Angie and me!"

"So how is it any of _your_ nunya what happened to me and Stella?" Kowalski demanded, poking Ray hard in the chest. "You came chargin' back in town without even tellin' a body and you thought you could just swallow my life whole, my ex-wife and all!"

Responding by reflex, Ray grabbed two fistfuls of Kowalski's T-shirt, pulling him nose to nose. _"It was MY life, you punk!"_ he roared. "And _I_ was the one that left the door open! If it wasn't for me, you woulda spent the rest of your life sloppin' up your pile of parking tickets with mozzarella and tomato sauce!"

"And where do you think you'd be if it wasn't for me?" Kowalski spat back, grabbing Ray's tank top in an identical gesture. "Covered in cement, or six feet under the sand? You wanna change what happened, why don't we go out in the alley and you can do your damnedest to change it out there!"

"That's fine by me!" Ray was on the verge of none too gently hurling Kowalski toward the nearest exit door to oblige him when they both started at the presence of a firm, meaty hand on each of their shoulders. Grip weakened by their surprise, neither man resisted as the hands pushed them several feet apart.

"I severely doubt that your erstwhile colleagues in the Chicago Police Department would be so accommodating," Fraser said reproachfully, fixing each of them in turn with his sharpest, steeliest Mountie stare. He was garbed in regulation RCMP sweats, which at that particular point somehow made him seem even less-nonsense than the red serge. "Now, shall we return the competition to friendlier grounds?" With his foot he lifted the ball from the floor soccer-style, catching it in both hands.

Simultaneously, the two Rays sighed, mixed with anger, frustration and exasperation, though admittedly directed more at each other than at Fraser. Finally Kowalski jerked his head to one side and trotted off toward the middle of the court. "Football was always more my game anyway," he sulked.

"Oh, yeah, contact sport," Ray poked. "Big surprise."

"Lay off, Vecchio," Kowalski snapped back. "I ain't finished with you yet."

"Just out of curiosity, Stan," Fraser said, bouncing the ball at a leisurely gait along the perimeter of the court, carefully gauging the wind resistance generated by the ventilation system and the air movement incurred by his own movements and those of his friends. "Is it European football or North American that you consider your forte?"

"What's the difference?" Kowalski shrugged.

Fraser paused in his tracks, bounced the ball once and hurled it at the basket from extreme distance. Not unexpectedly, it fell straight through the dead center of the hoop. "Putting it quite simply, the World Cup versus the Super Bowl."

"Oh, _that_ kind of a difference."

"Yeah, the kind that got its start from some college professor bootin' a pigskin over a fence," Ray smirked.

"Actually," Fraser said matter-of-factly as he tossed the ball toward Ray, "football traces its origins far further back than most people suspect. It was first invented by a rogue Inuit shaman, who kicked a cabbage from village to village as a means of intertribal conflict resolution. It does appear that it still has similar applications to this day."

Ray caught the ball, but he stood dead in his tracks, staring incredulously at his old friend, a look he reserved for manifest insanity. "Fraser, you just make this stuff up for laughs, don't you?"

Fraser paused, averting his eyes as he considered the benefits of honesty, weighing them with the consequences of one of his friends calling out his lapse. Finally his concessive nod led into his response. "Well, er....yes, Ray. Yes, I do."

Ray exchanged a knowing look with Kowalski as he drove for the hoop. "All right, so we got the time and the place for Wichmann's meeting this afternoon. Whaddya figure we bang our heads on until then?" At an easy, almost languid pace, he jumped - more of a hop, really - and neatly dropped the ball through the basket.

"Start rattlin' doors at different hotels?" Kowalski offered. "Maybe we'll get lucky."

"Yeah, and maybe we'll get blasted where the sun don't shine with a very large-caliber weapon," Ray dissented.

Sensing a resurgence, Fraser interposed himself, catching the ball and tossing it Kowalski's way. "Actually, Stan, I think that's not such a bad idea. I understand you weren't so successful with your earlier queries, so...."

"Wait just a damn minute," Kowalski cut him off. "You _heard_ that? How the hell long _were_ you eavesdroppin' out there?"

"Perish the thought." Fraser seemed genuinely confused by the suggestion. "The ventilation system carried your conversation into the locker room quite well, especially when you were going for each other's jugulars just now."

An awkward pause would have been far too polite a description for what followed, as both Rays stood awash in guilt on opposite sides of the court, Vecchio hanging his head and Kowalski shifting his feet. Finally Kowalski bounced the ball and loped toward the basket. "So who do you figure Wichmann was supposed to meet at the museum anyway?" he asked as he lobbed the ball through the hoop.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Fraser admitted, catching the ball on a pass from Ray. "But it seems more than likely that whoever murdered him targeted his relatives next when they came to search for him. Which begs the question of whether they're still alive themselves, and if so, how long they have to remain that way."

"So where's the motive?" Kowalski continued. "None that I can see unless he knew somethin' about the kids who've gone missing."

"But if all these kids got napped from around the lake shore, and Wichmann got whacked in upstate New York...." Ray trailed off, uncertain of how to pose the question.

"Indeed, Ray," Fraser nodded. Again at extreme range, he chucked the ball cleanly through the basket. "It's quite the conundrum. Perhaps Mr. Wichmann's contact will be able to tell us more, but in the meantime, a little door-knocking around the local hotels might prove worthwhile."

"We oughta check with Frannie some time today, too. She said she'd run by the NCIC to see if she could pick up some leads from the kids' families, find out where they were and what they were doin' when they got grabbed. If she's not too busy tryin' to drag a high-heel vending machine into the break room, maybe she's diggin' into the trash-car lead as well."

"You're askin' an awful lot of Frannie, y'know," Kowalski told him.

"What, like she's never gone after multiple leads before?"

"No, like she's never gone after 'em before shoe shopping."

Ray snickered sarcastically, creating a distraction sufficient for him to bolt around Kowalski with the ball changing hands at least once each second. He caught Kowalski off guard, but he had more limited success distracting Fraser, who quickly blocked him off and would have snatched the ball at once had Ray not broken right and headed back for the hoop. Fraser and Kowalski both flanked him, neither of them able to claim the ball before he leaped for the basket and landed the closest thing to a slam dunk he had accomplished since high school. Having used up all the wind he'd been saving for the past couple of minutes, he dropped back to the floor, backed away from the hoop and bent over with a whispered groan, massaging his knees.

"I suggest that Francesca also find out about any demands the families might have received from the kidnappers," Fraser spoke up as he caught the ball and tossed it toward Kowalski.

Ray straightened up and turned toward him, his expression changing from one of exertion to a deep, hard frown, as if Fraser had just likened him to a porcine creature. "Come again?"

"As we've seen far too often, a kidnapping is usually followed by a demand for some sort of financial recompense."

"What, like a ransom?" Kowalski said. He jogged toward the hoop, but only Fraser went after him - Ray had quite suddenly dropped off to the sidelines, disturbed to his core.

"Uh-huh," Fraser said with a knowing half-grin. "I don't imagine your fellow private investigators had anything of that seam to offer."

"Not that any of 'em told me," Kowalski said, jumping and flinging the ball from a moderate distance.

"Well, then, we have plenty of ground to cover," Fraser concluded. Again he caught the ball beneath the basket and slowed his pace to a walk as he bounced it up and down. "But every hour widens the gap between us and the victims. If we move fast and drive hard, we've a chance of closing it before any more young girls disappear."

"Move fast and drive hard?" Kowalski repeated, tossing up his hands. "Fraser, look at us. You know how long it's been since we were in any kinda shape to move moderate and drive slightly malfeasible?"

"I believe you mean 'malleable'," Fraser said pontifically. "However, Stan, should this amount to more than a line of serial abductions, I submit that these missing girls should be so lucky to live as long as we have. But if we divide, we can conquer."

"Okay, I'm gonna need that in plain English, Fraser. As in non-Canadian."

"I called Maggie last night." Fraser felt a smile tugging his face as he saw Kowalski perk up. "She's searching for information on any Canadian victims as we speak. I intend to return to the consulate and follow up with her while the two of you follow your own leads."

"So you, uh...." Kowalski shrugged, trying to act casual. "You think maybe we might run into her along the way?"

"Possibly," Fraser allowed. "We'll just have to see where our respective trails lead us."

He noted Kowalski's hopeful half-smile, but when he looked over at Ray, the pensivity in his old partner's expression struck him: Ray had been staring fixedly at the basketball hoop for almost a full minute. Fraser hadn't seen such a look of deep thought since his friend's single-minded effort to outsmart Charles Carver. Something had come over him, and Fraser couldn't be sure what.

He felt, however, that he was about to have his answer after they had concluded the game, showered, and changed into the day's street clothes. He spent several extra minutes in the locker room ensuring that the buckle of his Sam Browne belt and the knot of his lanyard were centered to the posterior of a gnat. Then he headed out to the Riviera, where he found Ray's attitude unchanged: his friend leaned on the door panel with chin in hand, his frown deep and his eyes hard.

"What's troubling you, Ray?" Fraser asked.

Ray shook his head to fill the ensuing pause, gazing blankly at the Riviera's dashboard. "Aaah, I don't know, Benny. I don't know who's doing this, but right now I'm not even sure I want to."

"An unknown number of lives will be at stake if we don't find out."

"Yeah, that much I know." Ray sighed and shook his head again, and when it steadied his gaze no longer rested on the dashboard. Instead he stared through his window, not seeing the high-rise on the corner across the street from the gym. Fraser could tell he was staring at something faraway, something long past - possibly something he thought he'd forgotten.

"I remember something like this when I was down in Vegas. You know we were able to bag the head honchos in the Iguana family for gunrunning, but that whole thing blew up before I could prove the rest. They were in competition with some of the rival syndicates for overseas trade, and I'm not just talkin' about illegal goods."

"I see," Fraser said. "You think perhaps you've been given another chance?"

"Maybe, maybe not. It's been fifteen years since Vegas - for all I know, the entire Iguana family could be ancient history by now. But they weren't the only ones in the trade. Whoever we're lookin' for, they're into a damned sick business and it's still goin' strong."

"It's an unfortunate fact of human history that illegal activity is expensive activity. Rumrunning during the Prohibition period, for instance. For others, men such as James Bulger, Nicholas Van Zandt, Wilson Warfield - "

"And Carl Zuko. You don't gotta tell me about it, Benny. Hell, there's a reason they called Armando Langoustini 'the Bookman.' I kept every book that Godforsaken family made for a full year. But not a one of 'em made me sicker than this one."

"Hmm," Fraser said softly around his finger. "Well, if this is familiar territory, do you have an idea how to cover it?"

"Yeah, I do." Ray's face went blank and he gazed sightlessly down the Riviera's hood. "There's an old acquaintance of mine in town who might be able to shed some light on the subject, if I can just track him down. Want me to drop you at the consulate on the way up?"

"Well, I'd like to accompany you, if I may."

Ray smiled slightly. "Thanks, but I better take this one alone. Could get personal."

"Understood." Fraser nodded once and stared distantly away through the windshield. "A sick business it may be, Ray. But if you're right, somebody has found a way to make it not only a great deal sicker but more difficult to trace."

"Yeah, well, if it turns out Wichmann got whacked by the same dirtbag who's behind it, they're gonna have one hell of a big problem. Probably three."

"Hmm," Fraser nodded assent.

With an exasperated sigh, Ray reached forward to start the car and head off to the parking-lot exit. "You know, you're gonna drive me off the deep end yet with all this 'hmm' stuff."

"Well, I don't see why, Ray. After all, I only used to hum when you were right, right?"

"Right."

"And you always enjoyed being right, right?"

"Right. But I still don't see how that gives you the right to go right on with the 'hmm' every time I get something right."

"No, you're quite right. Oh, Ray, you might want to turn right here. This is the right way back over to the consulate."

"Yeah, right. Well, from now on just put a lid on the 'hmm' whenever I'm right, all right?"

"Right."


	8. New Direction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack selection for this first scene: ["The Man's Too Strong"](http://youtu.be/AVdB-UKfxD4) by Dire Straits.

Trust, Fraser reminded himself, was the foundation of any friendship, whatever its level. More than once he found his mind wandering toward the Rays' confrontation on the basketball court whilst he was on the phone with Maggie, jotting down notes on the Canadian victims - of whom there had been more than a couple. He forced his mind to steer back to the solution of the case, rather than calling either of his friends to find out if they had, by some intermediate fluke, wound up following each other around town to resume beating the living daylights out of each other. He knew Francesca had had to separate them when Ray first came back to town from Las Vegas and he could only hope that his own intervention had gotten the hint across to them, that he could trust them to keep their minds on the task at hand instead of hunting each other down like a pair of dueling snipers.

Maggie had been able to give him a comprehensive run-down on four teenage girls - two from Toronto, one from Vancouver and one from a small town in Saskatchewan - who had been either vacationing or visiting family anywhere from northwest Ohio to the east shore of Wisconsin. In each case, the stories shared the similarity of the girls having been abducted from a public place, be it a movie theater, a shopping mall, the streets of Chinatown, or even one of the beaches along the lake shore. After the third disclosure, Fraser envisioned the beginnings of a flow chart in his mind, which he began to draw as he listened to the details of the fourth. He carefully memorised every detail as he sketched out the chart, preparing to juxtapose it with whatever his friends had come up with when they reconvened at the museum.

Briefly he hung it on the wall of his office and eyed it from a distance, just for the sake of seeing the full picture, both literally and figuratively. Then he struck out on the streets to start knocking on hotel-room doors, wondering all the while how Ray and Ray were progressing.

Kowalski had taken it upon himself to dovetail. Checking his own information against that which he had heard from his fellow PIs in the region, he worked his way through some of the hotels on the north side, getting more cooperation from some staff members than from others. Finally he commenced door-knocking without even speaking to the staff at the front desk. Asking everyone from housekeeper to vacationer to long-term guest, he continued to get varying degrees of cooperation, even to the point of one or two room guests slamming the door on him and making a mad dash for the window. Kowalski insisted to himself that he not wonder if it was his fault or theirs as he resigned himself to the ongoing hunt.

In the meantime, Ray had found two angles of his own from which to approach the case. Similar to Kowalski, he started with a certain sector of the city - though even if anybody asked him he had no intention of explaining why he'd started on the border of the north and west sides. He made his own way south, alternating between knocking on hotel doors and searching for information on a contact of his own, silently hoping and praying Fraser wouldn't call to check on his progress and oblige him to make something up. As it was, he found that a disappointing dearth of his fellow retired detectives had stayed in town: he couldn't blame them even though their absence didn't make his job any easier.

Kowalski hit pay dirt not at a hotel but at the Auburn Theater, learning from several of the players that one of them had witnessed an abduction without even knowing it, writing it off simply as an irate parent hauling a fussy, uncooperative kid out the nearest exit. The incident had been recent enough that the player, though he didn't recall seeing a weapon, still remembered both of the faces he'd seen, enough that he could be trusted to plunk down with a police sketch artist and make out a composite drawing of both. That lead being followed, Kowalski proceeded downtown apace, in search of the telltale great red spot that he knew would streamline the search like nothing else.

Notwithstanding, it took him a few hours to locate Fraser, who had spent the second half of his day enquiring with none other than the myriad vagrants inhabiting the north-south streets. He welcomed Kowalski's arrival however, though by the end of an hour's platitudes about teamwork - afforded as it was by a mind full of crucial questions and the faster pace of an automobile - Kowalski could almost count the teeth marks in his tongue. He found it much easier to refrain from decking Fraser after the Mountie requested that he aim the GTO's stubby black nose northward, the sooner to interview some of the abductees' relatives - some of whom lived in Arlington Heights and the others in Lake Forest. 

Ray was not so lucky. After visiting a third police precinct on the west side, the best place he could think of to look was the cemetery at St. Michael's. He had no idea if he would even find a clue there - likely not - but after everything he'd been through in Las Vegas, from illicit business deals to witnessing cold-blooded murders, the memories of which had all come flooding back to him in a torrent that very morning, he could think of few other places he really wanted to go. He discovered to his amazement that Father Behan was still serving, in his own brogued words, "until the Lord sees fit to retire me." Throughout his years Ray had been skeptical about divine intervention, but he wouldn't ever again deny that a half hour's chat with Father Behan gave him second sight. Not only because of the kindly old priest's freely given ear, but because at the end of that half hour Ray wished he'd thought to come to St. Michael's in the first place.

That one visit gave him all the direction he needed - Father Behan had for all intents and purposes told him exactly where he needed to go.

************

Ray's face was carved from stone as he reached for the doorbell. He fought the inclination to look over both his shoulders for anyone who could be lurking behind him with a hollow metal tube pointed at his back, real or imaginary. This neighbourhood was considerably more populated than the old one - row townhouses lining both sides of the street on one block, storefronts and apartment buildings occupying the next. It was not a filthy, anarchistic neighbourhood by any means, but all the same it had come as a surprise that he'd find himself - and his would-be contact - here.

The door swung open. For a long, tense second, Ray stood on the front steps exchanging stares of steel with the man on the inside.

"Been a long time."

Ray scoffed quietly, smirking. "Took me a while to find you. Didn't think I'd find you in a place like this."

"I figured when the time was right, I'd come find you." Without blinking, Frank Zuko stood aside, holding the door open. He tensed, waiting for Ray to deck him as soon as he passed the threshold. Only when Ray walked past him without raising his hand did he begin to acknowledge that his old enemy wanted no such confrontation.

For his own part, Zuko had packed on several pounds and his hair had turned iron grey. Even if he were to go toe to toe with Ray again, there would be no way he could do it single handed and emerge any less scathed than he had from the encounter on the basketball court. He closed the door without locking it, walking behind Ray into the living room that comprised the front of the townhouse. On either side of a black cherrywood coffee table the two men stood facing each other again, tension charging the air.

"How's the kids?" Ray asked finally, trying but failing to stifle the memory of asking Zuko's sister the same question.

"Whose?" Zuko returned, his tone clipped. "Mine or Irene's?" He paused a moment, watching the pain and loss in Ray's eye reflecting the glint of his own. "C'mon, Vecchio, you and I both know you didn't drop in here to ask after my family. At least not my natural one. Since when do you make social calls on anyone anyway?"

"Your little girl was what? Six years old first time I saw her?"

"Yeah, and now she's twenty-five and she's married to an advertiser on the upper north side, but that doesn't mean she's not still my little girl. What of it?"

"What about when she was fifteen, sixteen? Whether she went to bed at night or stayed out late with a boy, you sleep any better than she did?"

"She didn't go anywhere with any boy until she was nineteen. She knew what happened to Irene - and she saw what happened to the rest of us because of it. Don't think for a second that you're the only one who suffered from that."

Ray stepped forward, his hands carefully steady at his sides. "This isn't about Irene, Frankie. And it's not about your daughter, either. This is about a lot of other daughters whose parents are lyin' awake night after night wondering what the hell happened to them, if they'll ever see 'em alive again. _And_ it's about an old guy who got whacked just because he happened to be related to one of 'em."

"Oh, and you think I know who's behind it?" Zuko pressed his hands to his chest, acting genuinely offended. "That's it, huh? Everything we've been through together and now you just come here to beat me for information?"

"I could beat you for plenty worse, cuz. But I'm not gonna do it. Almost two dozen teenage girls got snatched outa the streets all the way from Toledo to Green Bay in the past month, and I'm willin' to bet it's gotten through the grapevine."

"I'll take that bet." Zuko folded his arms and looked smug. "Don't know a damn thing."

"You know what the Iguana family had going on in Vegas back in the late nineties," Ray rebutted. "What they were smuggling through and out of Vegas under cover of casino staff. Hell of a lot easier then because border control and background checks weren't near as rigorous as they've been since Nine-Eleven. You showed up there to get a piece of the pie, try and make up for what you lost after you killed Irene."

 _"We_ killed Irene," Zuko snapped. "It was because of you as much as me." It was all he could think of by way of deflection, but Ray ignored him and continued to turn the screw.

"Nicky Van Zandt showed up the same weekend," he went on, watching with grim satisfaction as Zuko's sneer faltered and faded. "And so did Two-Tone Malone. You were all after the livestock trade the Iguana family had to offer so you could run it through the Chicago market. At least livestock's what they called it."

"How do you know about that?" Zuko spat.

"I was there, too, Frankie," Ray said, grinning satanically. "Showed you the books myself. I mean, yeah, maybe my voice sounded a little different, and maybe I was tryin' not to reach across the table and wring your neck the whole time, but boy, did I get a kick out of watchin' you drool. That two and a half million bucks a move sounded too good to be true, didn't it?"

Shocked to silence, Zuko unfolded his arms and stared at Ray in disbelief. "But....but Langoustini....everybody from Phoenix to Fargo knew the Bookman was Iguana's right-hand man. You mean to tell me that - that was _you?"_

"The Bookman's been dead for all of seventeen years, pal. Y'know, I swore up and down to the Feds I'd never do it. But like I just said - sounded too good to be true. Maybe I'd have a crack at Iguana, Malone, maybe even you. But Malone won out, and you know where he ended up before the turn of the century. I coulda told Iguana you were his man, Frankie. You coulda paid off your debts before you went flat broke, and I coulda brought you down right alongside him. But if you'd been in Malone's shoes, you sure as hell wouldn't have lived long enough for that, let alone payin' off your debts, and you know who they would have fallen on afterward. I hate to break the news to you, cuz, but you owe me one. You owe me one big."

Slowly, stiffly, Zuko sank into an overstuffed easy chair to one side of the table, angled away from the front window. He stared at a nondescript spot on the hardwood floor, saying nothing, scarcely able to comprehend what he'd just heard, that he just might owe Ray Vecchio - his arch-nemesis, the man he blamed in part if not whole for the death of his sister - his own life.

Finally he looked askance up at Ray. "So what are you askin' me for? You cut Malone in on the deal, you gotta know more about it than I ever did."

"I know the stock came from south of the border. It was gonna be rounded up in Vegas and then moved out in cargo containers. They'd be loaded one at a time in a rail terminal outside Vegas and then moved to Chicago by train. Way easier than it should have been because every railroad on the continent was hot to trot for intermodal traffic. But once the container got to Chicago, who was the best candidate for a distributor? That's where it came down to Malone, Van Zandt, and you."

"Well, if you wanted to bring me down so bad, why didn't you tell Iguana I was his man? Get even with me for Irene, your Mountie pal - hell, even Marco?"

"Iguana wanted Malone out of the way. I knew it. Once I told Iguana who to get in bed with, it was out of my hands. But that doesn't matter now. What I wanna know is how it was supposed to work. You had to have a legit front to keep the stock off the radar after it got to town, so how were you gonna work it?"

Zuko's eyes narrowed. "There's no statute of limitations for this kind of thing. If I tell you, how do I know you won't rat me out?"

Ray shrugged. "How did you know I wouldn't tell the whole neighbourhood how I beat the living piss out of you on that basketball court?"

Zuko sighed - he could, however grudgingly, see Ray's point. All he had was the man's word, the same now as he'd had then: Ray had kept to his word then, and even all these years later there was no reason he wouldn't keep to it now.

"You were right about the train transport," he said finally. "They pulled out all the stops. Took the container only about two days to get from Vegas to Chicago. Then it'd be moved by trailer truck to the final destination."

"And who paid the freight bill? If the Feds could've tied it to you, you'd still be in the joint to this day."

"I had a fence who operated a trucking service on the west side. A real slick operator. He was in good enough graces with the railroad and business-savvy enough with everybody else that nobody suspected he was into smuggling, not even his drivers. They enjoyed the profit sharing too much to ask questions, never even suspected why there was enough profit to share in the first place."

"So this guy with the good graces and the keen business sense, is he still exercising it? Or have the Feds long since shut him down?"

"That you're gonna have to beat out of somebody else, Ray. I haven't had contact with him in more than ten years. After you gave Iguana's numbers to Malone, I took one hell of a loss, including contact with some of my old partners. Why do you think I'm even living in this dump to begin with?"

"Just be grateful you're living." Ray stared at Zuko for a long, unsympathetic moment. "This fence of yours, he got a name?"

"What if he doesn't?"

"Then maybe we'll reopen some more old wounds."

This time Zuko couldn't ignore the threatening pierce of Ray's gaze. Even at their age Ray could still make mincemeat out of him. And if he had been undercover with the Iguana family for a year, he was deadly likely to have learned how to make sure a body would never be found - and just as likely to have never forgotten.

"He had a name. Ferdinand Gamellan. But don't come breaking down my door if it turns out not to be his real one."

"Yeah, well, a name like that, I would have changed it years ago." Ray scoffed and shook his head in disbelief, then turned and started toward the front door. Zuko remained sitting still in the easy chair, not watching him. He returned his gaze to the middle of the floor, intently studying a crack between the boards until Ray paused, turned again, and stood between the table and the love seat in front of it, staring out the window.

"You know, Frankie, things coulda turned out a lot differently."

Zuko rolled his head upward in disgust. "Oh, please, you're not gonna try and bond with me now, are you?" he spat in like manner.

"You know me better than that," Ray scowled. "If Irene was still alive, would we both be?"

"What's done is done. What's the point of dragging that up all over again? You're right, Ray, things could have turned out a lot different. Like if you'd just minded your own damn business instead of bustin' into my house to drag her off with you."

Ray bowed his head for a moment. "Yeah, well," he muttered, clearing his throat, "you coulda left Marco Matroni in peace instead of pieces."

There was nothing more to say. A poor second's stare hung between both of them until Ray once again turned away and walked slowly out of the house.


	9. A Night At the Museum

"What'd I tell ya, Fraser?" Kowalski said with a knowing grin as he swung the GTO into the museum parking lot.

"About what, Ray?"

"About that little hint we dropped in that crevasse off of Queen Maud Gulf. Remember? You wanted to plant a, what was it, a Mountie flag there, but I was like, no, that'd be like droppin' a pocket handkerchief in a prison laundry room. So we came up with somethin' different."

"Ahhhh, yes," Fraser nodded as it all came back to him. Together they heaved themselves out of the GTO, heading up the pathway on the west side of the museum toward the main entrance. "I have to admit, Ray, I never thought you would warm to the game of curling quite as well as you did. But I couldn't have sculpted a smoother, shinier, shapelier curling stone myself, and I surely wouldn't have thought of using it to mark the expedition's final repository. Mind you, I'm still not convinced that keeping the location of the _Erebus_ a secret was in the best traditions of archaeology."

"Oh, c'mon, Fraser. Who woulda believed a Mountie and an American cop...." Kowalski paused thoughtfully. "Okay, so maybe they woulda believed a Mountie on his own. But I bet naming me co-discoverer wouldn't of propped up your credibility too high."

"Ah, you underestimate yourself. I'm sure you noticed the rediscovery of the _Erebus_ made worldwide headlines; and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that dropping an obscure reference to the final resting place of an antique handcrafted curling stone would have brought an archaeological team running to the site. Or rowing, as the case may be."

"Can you believe the Canadian park service even sent a full team for that? I mean, just to find, uh, a hunk of stone with a handle on it?"

"You know, Ray, a wise man once said that a curling stone may have no practical purpose in itself, but it is a repository of human possibility. And if it's handled just right, it will exact the kind of poetry...." Fraser trailed off as he noticed the piercing stare Kowalski was levelling at him. "It's not important."

"Yeah, well, wait'll they find the _Terror._ That Gordon Lightfoot album you planted with the captain's silver collection is gonna have 'em scratchin' their heads for years."

"Well, in the interests of not joining the ranks of perennial head-scratching, how soon can we expect an update from your theater witness?"

"By tomorrow anyway. But don't get your hopes up, Fraser. You can't rush these things. I seen it happen too many times before. Guy gets confused and he, ah, he draws the wrong nose and you end up tossin' the wrong guy in the joint."

"Well, Ray, we do have some experience with measuring noses for accurate identity," Fraser said with a slight grin.

"Yeah, sure we do. What if I told you that's the fourth time you called me Ray since we got here?"

"Did I?" Fraser asked innocently as they started around the bend toward the main entrance.

"Hey, don't try and wriggle out of it," Kowalski gloated. "You called me Ray and you know it. Just like you know I was on the verge of rammin' your teeth down your throat if you called me Stan again."

"Yes, well, there is confusion to be avoided. And since Ray Vecchio is legally known as Ray - "

"I'll give ya legally known. I was legally known as Ray Vecchio for more than a year, ya know. Still don't know how I pulled it off. I mean, that whole thing with Rankin coulda blown it outa the water."

"Mmm-hmm, not to mention the visit your parents paid to you just outside the station...."

"Oh, Jesus Christ on roller skates!" Kowalski exclaimed suddenly in an aggravated tone.

Fraser drew himself up straight and looked offended. "Quite unnecessary to take the Lord's name in vain, Ray. I mean, I realise that you took - "

"No, look," Kowalski said, pointing. "There he goes now."

Fraser turned his head, somewhat taken aback by the sight of a man who looked like he hadn't bathed in the better part of a month, roller-skating past them. His dark hair and his beard were almost equally long, he wore a dirty white robe with a dark red sash, and he held a piece of cardboard with "THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND" scrawled on it in messy capital letters.

"Hmf," Fraser said offhandedly. As the skater passed from his view, he raised his eyebrows at the sight of Ray Vecchio, quickening his pace toward them from the parking lot. "Ah, Ray!"

"Sorry I'm late," Ray hailed them. "Waitin' on a few calls."

"What, were you too late to get the iPhone Six when it came out?" Kowalski said, tossing up his hands.

"Aah, you don't seriously think I'm one of those nut cases who camped out for the damn thing, do you?" Ray said.

"Hey, people have camped out for weirder stuff before, like, uh, movies, Harry Potter books, even a date with their high-school prom queen," Kowalski needled him.

"Possibly even to reassure their best friend that they know what they're doing after a plane crash in the middle of nowhere," Fraser said knowingly.

"Hey, look, you're not the only one who can make a bed out of twigs with twenty years' practise," Ray came back.

"I suppose that's valid." Cocking his Stetson toward the museum's main entrance, Fraser regarded both of his friends with an encouraging look. "Shall we?"

Using their credentials to pass the reception desk - despite the warning from the staff that the museum had less than an hour until closing time - the three men made their way, with Fraser slightly edging to the lead, toward the east wing of the museum. Ray kept waiting for any one, fistful, or dozen of the tourists milling about the hallways to demand a picture with Fraser, but the majority of them seemed far too occupied with their smartphones, iPads, or other PDA devices to notice him. It took them only a minute to find their way downstairs and toward a long hallway leading to the far northeast end.

"Hey, so what ever happened to that busybody desk sergeant?" Kowalski queried. "Y'know, the one who spread the word about you bein' dead that one time?"

"Wishful thinker, huh?" Ray bantered.

"I believe she retired some years ago and took a part-time position as a nine-one-one operator," Fraser said.

"Oh," Kowalski mused. "Maybe that's why nobody can ever get through to 'em."

"Ah, here we are." Striding ahead of his two friends, Fraser led the way into a vast subterranean exhibit hall dominated by a full-sized, intact, immaculately preserved submarine, resting in a cradle alongside the far wall. To a man, it was a familiar sight: indeed, the _U-505_ had become a staple of the museum's collection before any of the three of them were born.

"Didn't this thing used to be outside the museum?" Kowalski asked.

"Well, yes," Fraser said. "But in more recent years, the city was becoming just a bit too windy and so the museum took extraordinary measures to move the ship below ground into its own exhibit hall to protect it from the elements. As you can see, they've done quite a remarkable job of preservation."

"Yeah, well, I still don't see why an enemy ship counts as a memorial to our guys."

"It all depends upon your point of view, Stan. While the _U-505_ may have been an enemy vessel at one time, Germany has since become an important ally in the West, the European Union, NATO, and the United Nations alike."

"Yeah, I guess that's why Uncle Sam thought it was so important to wiretap the German embassy," Ray grunted.

Fraser detected the unpleasant turn the conversation was taking and glanced at the book in his hands. "All right. Now according to this, Mr. Wichmann arranged this meeting for five o'clock. The museum closes at four, so either it's a clandestine meeting or he made arrangements with the staff to stay after hours. But if his contact is still expecting him....we'll need to integrate ourselves somehow to avoid scaring him off."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Ray enquired.

"Well," Fraser said simply, "perhaps we should explore our options along with the exhibit."

 

If he'd had a chance, Ray would have been the first to admit that in the trio's heyday he wouldn't have given an airborne rodent's posterior about the _U-505_ 's past. Even in all the years he'd lived in Chicago he had never visited it - it was little more to him than a tourist attraction, a gathering point for World War II veterans and aficionados of undersea warfare. Like Kowalski, he thought of the _U-505_ as the enemy's vessel and he didn't understand why it had been preserved in the first place, let alone threaded all the way up the St. Lawrence Seaway and across the Great Lakes to be displayed high and dry. Only now under Fraser's leadership - not to mention his old friend's contention that Erich Wichmann might well have served aboard one of the _U-505_ 's sister ships - did he begin to show a glimmer of interest in the submarine's story.

Despite looking gigantic within the confines of the exhibit hall, the _U-505_ was downright tiny on the inside. Discovering for the first time that it was one of the larger U-boats built, Ray couldn't help shaking his head wondering how a sixty-man crew could live for months in the cramped, claustrophobic quarters on board, let alone those of a smaller boat. Finding a place to hide and await Wichmann's contact would be a challenge to say the least.

Nevertheless, Fraser needed only take one walk between the torpedo rooms at either end of the boat to hatch a scheme. Though avoiding the night watchman would be the trickiest part by far, Fraser had never believed in the word _impossible,_ and even less so with the two Rays alongside him. As the day grew later, the attendance grew scarcer and the closing announcements were made, the three men kept nearer and nearer the interior of the _U-505_ to prepare for the meet. Finally silence fell in the exhibit hall.

Taking turns keeping a look out for the night watchman, they took advantage of a recent addition to the exhibit: a scattering of mannequins dressed in _Kriegsmarine_ uniforms occupying some of the more vital duty stations throughout the boat. Even Fraser wasn't entirely convinced that the night watchman would be fooled, but as he was no doubt trained to peer into every nook and cranny in which a person could possibly hide, their best bet for avoiding him was to hide in plain sight - to take the place of a few of those mannequins and hold their breath. The control room seemed the most promising spot, as two of the mannequins were seated at the helm and diving controls with a third, posing as the diving officer, standing behind them with his back to the rest of the room. Quickly and daringly, the three men divested each dummy of their hats and the foul-weather gear covering their uniforms - with the exception of Fraser, who would be obliged to wear the diving officer's commando sweater and suspenders in lieu of a raincoat. Then they stowed the dummies safely out of sight and out of mind in the crawl spaces underneath the deck.

When only one set of footsteps could be discerned outside the boat, they posted themselves at once: Ray manning the helm, Kowalski at the diving controls and Fraser standing over them, all three still as statues. Ray leaned to one side, venturing a peek through the doorway into the forward compartments.

 _"Ray!"_ Fraser whispered urgently. "He's just outside. I suggest you hold still."

"Who, the contact?" Ray muttered over his shoulder.

"No, the watchman. He seems to be looking over the other sections of the exhibit. He'll be in here any second."

Ray sat up straight and placed both his hands on the helm controls, freezing every muscle. He held his breath, trying not to twitch as he felt a tiny trickle of sweat seep from his temple just under the garrison cap he'd donned. He clenched his teeth and fought the twitch, imagining with perfect clarity that this was how the _U-505_ 's crew must have felt when they were trying to hide, deep underwater, from a marauding British destroyer.

At length they heard the slow, measured footsteps of the watchman entering through the doorway cut into the aft end of the hull. His feet scraped back and forth across the deck plates as he methodically peered into every bunk, around each engine, behind every pipe searching for a sign of some teenage prankster looking for a high old time. It seemed an eternity before he finally reached the control room: he paid no heed to the three men stationed at the helm before he climbed up the ladder to check the conning tower. Fraser held his breath, self-consciously wondering if the round crush cap on his head was doing a good enough job of concealing his buzzed silver hair. Presently the watchman dropped back down the ladder and continued forward to the radio and sonar rooms.

Fraser ventured a sideways peek to make sure the watchman wasn't turning back right away. Ray exhaled, then breathed slowly, deeply, hoping to God that his heart wasn't about to quit on him from lack of blood oxygen.

 _"Fraser!"_ Kowalski whispered.

"Mmm?" Fraser mumbled in reply.

"I got, uh....I got a killer itch in my back. You know that spot right between your shoulder blades you can't reach? Right smack dead center."

"Sorry to hear that, Stan, but you _must remain still."_

"Yeah, well, can't you give me a hand or somethin'?"

Moments later Kowalski felt Fraser's fingers digging into his back. "Lower," he whispered. Fraser complied, rewarded only by Kowalski's whisper of, "Higher." At last he found the right spot - or so it seemed - and scratched gently.

"Damn, it's movin', it's movin," Kowalski muttered. "Right a little?"

"You know, Stan, oilskin is not a conducive condition in these cases," Fraser whispered.

"Will you two scratch-tickers cut it out?" Ray growled.

"Oh, like you've never had an itch runnin' up and down your spine," Kowalski sniped.

 _"Shhh!"_ Ray snapped. _"Shhh!_ He's comin' back." At once all three of them froze, listening to the slow, cautious clank of the watchman's footsteps further forward. He was now making his way back aft from the forward torpedo room, turning off the lights in each compartment as he went. He paused in the control room, wondering if it was only his imagination that the diving-plane dummy's coat looked a bit more rumpled than it had earlier. He dismissed it as such, proceeded aft, and shut off the lights in the conning tower and control room: but Fraser waited until the watchman had killed the lights in the engine room before he budged.

"Damn, that was close." Taking off his hat, Kowalski leaned against the shaft behind him, vigourously rubbing his back against it.

"So now what?" Ray asked.

Fraser tiptoed to the conning-tower ladder, hoisted himself and turned the hatch light back on. Peering at his watch, he answered: "It's almost five now. The prevailing question, apart from why the meeting was set after closing time, is how Mr. Wichmann's contact plans on avoiding the night watchman."

"Could be he's hiding up on top," Ray suggested.

"Yeah, sure he is, right in full view of the mezzanine," Kowalski said sceptically.

"Oh, yeah, you're right, let's just wait for him to crawl in through a torpedo tube," Ray scoffed.

"Will everybody please settle down?" Fraser broke in. "I'm trying to listen."

"For what?" Kowalski prodded. "We're on dry land, Fraser. I don't think you're gonna pick up any sonar pings out there."

"Not with all the noise my joints are making, that's for damn sure," Ray groaned, pushing himself slowly to his feet. Kowalski followed suit, groaning and all. Fraser frowned at the two Rays as they slowly, achingly arose from several minutes of sitting motionless, Vecchio massaging his knees and Kowalski valiantly trying to relieve a crick in his neck.

"Old guys kickin' ass in Chi-town, are we, Vecchio?" Kowalski said wryly. "I don't see us kickin' anything but the bucket here."

Ray was about to riposte when Fraser suddenly held up one hand, bending his head, cocking an ear. When he lifted his head, his two companions didn't need night vision to see that his eyes were wide and fiery with the recognition of a sound only he could make out.

 _"Diving stations!"_ Fraser whispered tersely. He leaped onto the bottom rung of the ladder just long enough to turn off the hatch light. Then in haste the three men resumed their positions, freezing every bit as statuesquely as they had earlier - with the sole exception that Kowalski nearly forgot to put his enormous, flopping foul-weather hat back on his head.

Fraser held deathly still, listening to the footfalls descending down the ladder from the bridge into the conning tower. They were too rapid for an old man but not rapid enough to be a thrill-seeking teenager. The individual now shuffling around the control-room hatch weighed about 105 kilograms, he judged, and wore Bates dress shoes with composite soles. Then an object landed softly on the conning-tower deck as the individual crouched, opened the hatch, and started down the ladder. Fraser again held his breath, aware from the lack of air movement around him that Ray and Kowalski were doing the same.

The individual reached the deck in a short enough time to convince Fraser that he was no stranger to vertical ladders such as these - perhaps he was no stranger to antique submarines for that matter. He had retrieved the object he'd been carrying, which in Fraser's peripheral vision resembled an enclosed clipboard. The individual pointed his small penlight aft, then forward, and started toward the low watertight door beside the helm.

Fraser turned around before the strange man had even ducked. "Good evening," he said cordially.

With a loud cry of _"Bwaahh!"_ the stranger jumped almost high enough to strike his cranium on the overhead. He spun around, flinging himself against the bulkhead, eyes saucer-wide at the sight of a smiling Fraser and an unsmiling Kowalski and Ray, now standing up, facing him and switching on the lights. In a few seconds, Fraser had sized him up: he was a big, rugged man who looked to be in his early forties, with a barely-kempt shock of dark brown hair, a plastic document carrier tucked under his arm, and eyes that looked like they were capable of an intimidating glare when they weren't three times their normal size.

"Who the hell are you guys?" the stranger asked, baffled.

"Staff Sergeant Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police," Fraser answered flatly. "I first came to Chicago on the - "

"Fraser...." Kowalski interrupted.

"Hmm?"

"Shut up."

"Understood."

"Chicago P.D., pal," Ray stepped in. "Wanna tell us what you're doing here at this hour? And if you say you're here for a Black Hawks game...."

"Black Hawks?" the stranger said. "Who the hell comes to the MSI to see the Black Hawks? I don't even like soccer, for God's sake. I was just - "

"Oh-kay, well, at least we got that part cleared up," Ray cut him off. "So let's have it, pal. What _are_ you here for?"

"Well, I am _not_ here to try and burgle anything, my hand to God. I was expecting to meet someone here."

"Who?" Kowalski enquired.

"Erich Wichmann. He's a German veteran I've met a few times over the last couple of years. He's helped me out with a lot of research for my writing, and that's what we're supposed to meet here for."

Fraser's eyes narrowed as he recognised the younger man's pronunciation of German consonants. Where Ray had constantly mispronounced the name _Witch-man,_ this individual correctly pronounced it _Vikh-man._ If he understood German, if he knew Wichmann and if he had been planning to meet him on or anywhere near the _U-505,_ he had just unknowingly formed a crucial connection. From there Fraser's attention was drawn to Ray bowing his head, heaving a low sigh.

"Well, I'm afraid Mr. Wichmann can be of no further assistance," Fraser said quietly. "He was found dead in a reclamation plant yesterday. And it appears, moreover, that he did not die of natural causes."

"My God, are you serious?" the stranger gasped, his consternation genuine. "Well, what happened to him?"

"That's what we're attempting to find out."

"So you gonna tell us your name, or what?" Kowalski pressed.

"Uh...." The strange man sucked in a deep breath, shaking his head, clearly still as flustered by these three unexpected interlopers as by the unfortunate news of his elderly acquaintance. "Peter. Peter Lerschen."

Fraser's eyebrows shot toward his hairline. "Not the same Peter Lerschen who recently published 'Wolves of the East Coast'?"

"Oh, you know that one?" Suddenly Lerschen's eyes brightened.

"Well, not intimately, I'm afraid. However, not far from where Mr. Wichmann's body was discovered, I found this in a refuse container." Fraser opened the chart desk, pulled out the book and held it forward, one thumb inserted beneath its front cover. "I believe you'll find some interesting reading."

"Well, I'm glad somebody thinks so," Lerschen said, reaching for the book. "I mean, if you found it in a gigantic pile of trash...." His voice trailed off as Fraser flipped the cover upward with his thumb, revealing the inscription on the inside.

"Ah....hah," he said slowly. "So I'm gonna take a leap here and guess you guys didn't show up just to tell me Erich is dead."

"I knew him down in Florida," Ray said. "And there sure as hell wasn't anyone down there who wanted to bump him off. So now he turns up dead in Chicago at least a day before he's supposed to meet you. What's the math on that?"

"Erich was a U-boat sailor during World War Two," Lerschen explained. "Like I said, he was gonna help me with some research for a new book. He served on one of the U-boats that penetrated the St. Lawrence River in nineteen forty-four. I met up with him in Quebec City a couple of weeks ago while he got his bearings and refreshed his memory, then we were going to meet here so he could better remember some of the finer details of life on board."

"Yeah, only you got here still breathing the fresh, fulfilling Chicago air," Kowalski said sarcastically, "while he arrived by trash train a couple days later."

"Well, I don't know what the hell happened to him. The last I saw of him he was standing on the northeast point of the Ile-d'Orléans, staring down the river like it owed him something. The man was eighty-eight years old. Who in God's name would want to kill a guy who had one foot in the grave as it was?"

"We're here to find exactly that answer, sir," Fraser said. 

 

Laying all suspicions aside for the moment, the four men convened in the _U-505_ 's officers' mess, little more than an alcove off the main passageway through the officers' quarters. Lerschen sat at the head of the table with Fraser sitting to one side against the outer bulkhead, Ray next to him and Kowalski on the inboard side with his back to the passage. The book lay in the middle of the table amidst a setting of scantily decorated faux dinner plates.

"So you met Wichmann first in Quebec City and then you planned to meet him again here," Ray repeated. "All right, fair enough. So what's the connection?"

"Well, Quebec City is near where Erich first set foot on North American soil after his boat was sunk. He served on the _U-896._ She was a Type IXC U-boat, the same as this one. We both thought being in familiar surroundings would help jog his memory of those days, so I asked him for another meeting here. You said you knew him, but did you know he was a U-boat sailor?"

"Well, not till we found your book less than twenty feet away from his body," Ray said matter-of-factly.

"I'm not surprised," Lerschen said. "He must have told you he was conscripted into the _Kriegsmarine_ since that was how he got across the pond in the first place. But he wasn't keen to let anyone in on his duty station. He didn't want anyone coming after him thinking he was a party to the Nazis."

"So why didn't he just stay in Germany?" Kowalski asked.

"Well, he'd lived in Bremen, which was one of the cities hit hardest by Allied bombing. There wasn't much left for him to go home to. In fact, after he was released from a federal prison in Kingston, Ontario at the end of the war, he was so disillusioned with Germany on the whole that he just decided to stay in North America and start a new life."

"Never told me that part, either," Ray mused.

"Did he recall where he came ashore?" Fraser asked.

"Near La Malbaie, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, about thirty miles downriver from Quebec City," Lerschen nodded.

"Whoa, whoa," Kowalski cut in. "Christ on a bike, are you sayin' a U-boat got _that close_ to a major city?"

"Not just _a_ U-boat, several of them did. The Battle of the St. Lawrence, they called it. Not too many people even know of it, but that's what my new book is about. Assuming of course that we still have freedom of the press by the time it gets there."

"Damn," Kowalski murmured. "That's, uh, that's....damn unsettling."

"If it hadn't been for the Royal Canadian Navy, there's a good chance the war would have turned out a lot different for eastern Canada," Lerschen said wryly.

"Although I doubt somehow that it would have brought us all here," Fraser pointed out. "How long ago did you meet him?"

"Almost two weeks. We spent several days together going over the part of the riverbank where he came ashore, and where he and his shipmates took cover until the RCMP tracked them down. The wreck of the _U-896_ isn't far away. She was just discovered herself not too long ago after being forgotten for decades - being just one of dozens of U-boats that were sunk along the eastern seaboard later in the war."

"The wolves of the East Coast," Fraser said with a slight smile, touching the book.

"Mmm-hmm, the ones that became the prey instead of the predators. Now when I met up with Erich this time, he'd found out that the _U-896_ was in a narrow strait between St.-Philippe and St.-Joseph, in awfully shallow water. Not only is she a menace to navigation, she's a natural target for souvenir hunters, which is illegal because she's also a war grave. A group called the Quebec North Shore Maritime Association announced plans to salvage her last year and restore her for display, and they caught both Erich's attention and mine. That's when we agreed to meet."

"Salvage a German sub that's been lyin' on its barnacles on the bottom of a river for seventy years," Kowalski said sceptically. "That oughta put hair back on your head, Vecchio."

"It's not as farfetched as it seems," Lerschen said, taking note of the four-letter look Ray fired at Kowalski. "The _U-534_ was salvaged from Scandinavian waters only about twenty years ago and put up for dry-land display in England. She's still mostly intact."

"Okay, so you said you left Wichmann standing on an island in the middle of the river, and that was the last time you ever saw him," Ray said. "Did he mention meeting anybody else? Any old shipmates, maybe local veterans he'd had contact with during the war?"

"No. Nothing. And I have no idea why anybody would want to kill him, unless there was some surviving veteran up there who still had a grudge."

"Could there be?" Kowalski shrugged. "I mean, how many of 'em are even left?"

"It's not unheard of, Stan," Fraser said. "I've read anecdotes of the residents of small Canadian towns finding that a German veteran was living amongst them and threatening him with severe bodily harm."

"It's sad but true," Lerschen said. "My own great-grandparents immigrated from Germany just before World War One. Can't tell you the number of times in high school when I found a swastika drawn on my locker."

"Mr. Lerschen," Fraser frowned, "was it you or Mr. Wichmann who arrived first in Quebec City?"

"Erich got there two weeks ago today. I arrived that weekend."

"And you came to Chicago ahead of him."

"That's right. I wanted to travel together, but he insisted that I go ahead and he would meet me here today. He said he wanted some time to himself, and I didn't push it. So I gave him this book as a thank-you gift, went home to Vermont for a few days and then flew here from Burlington on Wednesday."

"Why didn't you push it? Why'd you leave him?" Ray asked quietly.

"Out of respect, nothing more and nothing less. Old men, veterans of major wars....when memories like this come back to them after so many years, it can be almost traumatic for them. That term 'the horrors of war' was coined for a reason, gentlemen. No matter what their nationality, some of these men have never really come to grips with what they went through in the service, and they need time to gather their thoughts, to allow themselves to believe that all of it actually happened." Lerschen shook his head, staring at the table. "I gave Erich a hell of a lot of credit just for being able and willing to talk about his war days."

Ray soberly eyed the tabletop as well, understanding now why Wichmann had been such a friendly, gregarious man with so much respect for everyone he knew. He had used his congeniality to cover up years of struggle, both personal and military. He hadn't let his past get to him - he had buried it too deeply. Yet now that same past, one way or another, had motivated someone to kill him. Whoever that someone was, they could never, in a year, in a century, in a quadrennium, be allowed to get away with it.

"Listen, Detective," Lerschen said, staring evenly at Ray. "I swear to you, if I'd known someone wanted Erich dead, I never would have left him."

"Maybe you'd be dead, too, if you hadn't," Ray replied, cocking his head in a concessive gesture. "Besides, he asked if I wanted to come to Chicago with him and I turned him down. Who knows what could've happened. What did happen is that he got killed, and what's gonna happen next is that we nail the underhanded bastard."

"Which is gonna be a damn sight easier if we can establish a motive," Kowalski pointed out.

"Well, let's start with what we know," Fraser said. "We know that Mr. Wichmann lived in Florida for most of his life, a quiet and peaceful life he started when he swam ashore from a sunken U-boat in the St. Lawrence River. We also know that he was aware of plans to salvage that U-boat. And we further know that he wasn't the first murder victim to end up in Chicago on a trash train, so I think we can assume that he wasn't simply killed by a back-street low-life."

"Now hang on just a minute." Lerschen shook his head with a deep frown. "You think the _U-896_ has something to do with it? That doesn't make any kind of sense. If you ask me, they'll be lucky to have her in some kind of viewable condition in less than two years."

"Be that as it very well may, Mr. Lerschen, appearances can be deceiving," Fraser said. "You did say that the _U-896_ presented an excellent target for souvenir hunters, so I think it's also safe to assume Mr. Wichmann was wise to some sort of illicit activity on that river. Is the salvage still in the planning stages, or has the boat been brought up?"

"Nothing's been said about her breaking the surface. There have been a couple of tugs and salvage vessels poking around trying to get an idea of how best to break her free of the riverbed and bring her up again. At least, that's what I understand from a recreational sailor I know who lives in these parts."

"These parts," Kowalski repeated.

"These parts."

"That's nice and broad. Any idea what part we might find him in?"

"Lake Bluff," Lerschen muttered. By the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes, it was clear that he had little admiration for Kowalski's attitude. "He owns a townhouse up there near the naval base."

"He got a name?" Ray queried.

"Yeah, Harding Welsh."

Were the table not fixed to the deck and one bulkhead, it might well have turned on a dime, with both Rays exchanging stunned stares and Lerschen watching their reaction with interest. His own stare possessed drill bits of its own as he focused it on Kowalski, then on Vecchio. Fraser wore a similarly piqued expression, but he levelled it at none of the other men around the table. He stared fixedly at the table itself, his eyes narrow and his forehead twitching.

"Mr. Lerschen, are you alone?" he queried without looking up.

"Well, yeah. Don't ask me why Erich wanted to meet after hours, all I know is - "

"The number of footsteps outside might indicate otherwise," Fraser interrupted, lifting his head.

"I got him, Fraser," Kowalski volunteered. "I've got lost on big boats before." He started to rise, but Fraser abruptly clapped one hand over his wrist, pinning it to the table.

"It's not the watchman," he warned, cupping his other hand around his ear. "I count at least three sets of footsteps, a nine-millimeter Sig Sauer, a Heckler and Koch semiautomatic machine pistol....and I don't recognise the third man's weapon. It would seem, Mr. Lerschen, that you aren't as alone as you think."


	10. Shooting Gallery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the cliffhanger last week, but what is a good DS story without one....or three? ;)
> 
> Soundtrack for this scene is ["Three Pistols"](http://youtu.be/9B6ZLM7yK8c) by The Tragically Hip.

Just the sudden expression of terror crossing Lerschen's visage was enough to convince Fraser that he'd been wholly unaware of the unexpected company. Moving quickly, Fraser arose, herded Lerschen into the passageway and immediately blocked him from view of the forward compartments.

"I got point," Kowalski said, jerking his head sternward. "Vecchio!" Grabbing his backup gun from a holster strapped to his calf, he produced a pouch of extra ammunition from a jacket pocket and slid them across the table. Ray grabbed both, quickly checking the half-dozen chambers of the small revolver as Kowalski fished around in his inside jacket pocket for his thick shooting glasses. Those donned, he briskly led the way back aft toward the control room, with Fraser behind him keeping his ears opened: Lerschen trod lightly behind Fraser with Ray covering the rear.

"Stan, wait!" Fraser whispered, grabbing Kowalski's shoulder just before passing into the engine room. "The third man's approaching from astern. He's going to cut us off."

"Terrific," Kowalski muttered. "Any more bright ideas?"

"Yeah, get the hell out of here," Lerschen whispered urgently. "There's no good place to hide inside the boat. And if they start shooting machine guns, the bullets'll bounce around in here like ping-pong balls!"

"Well, then, what the hell are we hangin' around in here for?" Ray demanded.

"If this were a depth charge attack, we'd have to go deeper to evade," Fraser said offhandedly. "But they're coming at us from below instead of above. So I'd say we should get to higher ground."

"Well, can we?" Ray asked. No sooner was the query out of his mouth than the two gunmen approaching from the bow opened fire, sending both Ray and Lerschen pouncing for cover behind the search periscope and ladder, Fraser and Kowalski diving for shelter between the aft bulkhead and an immense steel cylinder housing the boat's air compressor. True to Lerschen's caution, a handful of bullets ricocheted off the bulkheads, all of them setting the foursome's ears ringing and some of them coming much too close for comfort, by freakish luck embedding themselves in the decorative plastic slabs of meat hanging from the overhead.

"God almighty!" Lerschen cried as he hunkered behind the air-compressor cylinder. "I did _not_ enter this in my daily planner for today!"

Fraser rubbed his right ear, sorting out the sounds of the individual gun blasts, realising that they had come from two single-shot weapons - one of which he still couldn't identify. The man coming at them from astern must be the one toting the H&K, he grimly deduced.

"Higher ground it is," he muttered. "We should try and reach the bridge. We'll have better chances topside. Ray, the lights!"

Venturing a peek around the bole of the periscope, Ray spied the light switch mounted on the opposite bulkhead almost immediately. He took a deep breath, held it, and brazenly bolted for the switch, rapidly ripping off three shots at the two gunmen in the bow as he punched the switch and plunged the control room into almost total darkness, save for the narrow shaft of light from the well of the hatch above. Several more gun blasts answered him - from much closer than before - as he bolted back for the cover of the periscope.

"All right, you guys better get up there first," he declared. "Kowalski, cover 'em!" Swinging around the periscope again, he fired three more shots forward and then withdrew, frantically reloading his gun as Kowalski laid down cover fire aft. However, Fraser was almost too late to warn him - the ear-rattling splutter of the H&K's report burst from the aft section of the boat a split second ahead of its hollow-pointed shells flying haphazardly through the control room. Kowalski bit off a snarled curse as one shell grazed his left arm, inciting him to empty half his clip through the aft bulkhead in retaliation, the resumption of fire from up forward notwithstanding: their only hope of survival was that the narrow confines of the _U-505_ forced the gunmen to stay out of each other's line of fire. The muzzle flashes had an eerie, dizzying strobe-light effect on the darkened interior of the boat.

Fraser gritted his teeth, much too aware that the gunmen had them all but cornered. "Get going!" he hissed at Lerschen, who was already on his way to scramble frantically up the ladder. Fraser followed, whilst Kowalski and Ray, almost overwhelmed by the ceaseless, heartless gunfire from both ends, fought to the last bullet. Last one to clamber up into the conning tower, Kowalski almost suffered several leg wounds in addition to his arm graze as he clawed his way upward.

No sooner had he thrown himself onto the conning-tower deck than Fraser slammed the hatch, spinning the wheel in its center to seal it shut.

"Lock it, lock it!" Ray urged. Hastily scanning the interior of the conning tower, Fraser seized a .50-caliber stanchion machine gun from a rack to one side and shoved the barrel through the spokes of the sealing wheel. He made sure to brace its breech against the forward bulkhead before he stood up straight, wincing at his back's protest of the exertion.

"You had to go and waste a perfectly good machine gun, did ya, Fraser?" Kowalski panted as he and Ray reloaded their guns.

"Yeah, well, they work a lot better when they have bullets in 'em," Ray said, his voice dense with sarcasm. "And what makes you think the museum's just gonna leave live fifty-caliber ammunition lying around in the open?"

"It's not important, fellas," Fraser said. "What is important is that we get out of here before our assailants are able to trap us." He looked down at the hatch to the control room as the wheel began to turn, being wrenched on from below, only to be jammed by the machine gun's barrel.

 _"Go!"_ he hissed at the other three. Kowalski made for the bridge ladder first, scrambling up the rungs to the bridge at the top of the boat, looking around at the multi-level mezzanine rounding the perimeter of the exhibit hall and grimly noting that they had little to no cover if there were any other shooters about. As Lerschen pulled himself through the hatch and stood up straight beside Kowalski, Fraser lingered only a few seconds to listen to the muffled shouting from the control room before Ray cajoled him up the ladder. Then Ray brought up the rear, at the ready in case the malfeasians below should manage to break through the hatch.

When all four were topside, Kowalski started aft toward the flak gun platform behind the bridge, keeping an eye out for movement on the floor of the hall. "Do these still work?" he asked, indicating the antiaircraft flak guns mounted at the sides of the bridge.

"Bullets," Lerschen repeated acidly.

"Yeah. Bullets. Right. I knew that." Kowalski leaned over the railing surrounding the flak guns, still searching for signs of noise or movement down below.

"Mr. Lerschen, how well do you know this boat?" Fraser asked.

"I've been on her a few times," Lerschen panted, his breath shortened more by fear than by effort.

"Does a Type IXC have any topside nooks or crannies a casual visitor wouldn't know about?"

 _"Heads up!"_ Ray exhorted before Lerschen could answer. The four of them barely had time to duck for cover behind the bridge bulkhead as the two pistol-armed gunmen emerged from under the _U-505_ 's bow. In a flurry of split seconds they had sighted on the four ducking heads and opened fire, rewarded only by Ray blindly emptying the chambers of his gun over the bulkhead at them.

"Up there!" The one with the Sig Sauer waved wildly to get the H&K shooter's attention as he came into view underneath the stern. "They're up top, we got 'em cornered! Go get 'em, fast!" To his partner, who was quickly inserting a fresh ammunition clip into a Mauser C-96, he gesticulated toward the ramps leading to the mezzanine level. "C'mon, let's go!"

When the three gunners were halfway up the ramps to the mezzanine, a loud, rattling burst from the H&K, coupled with a strangled howl of agony from the other end of the hall, told the foursome covered on the bridge that the night watchman had tried a little too hard to be a hero. Coldly ignoring the sacrifice, the gunmen proceeded up the ramps to the mezzanine, certain that their prey would still be stuck on the _U-505_ 's bridge, trying to find a clear way off - that they would be easy targets. They stopped and held on the level just behind the stern, the two pistol carriers going into a crouch and the machine-gunner remaining upright. They opened a withering fire on the bridge, counting on the poor cover at its rear to take their subject out.

The cover might have been poorest there, but it was still effective. The two Rays, hunkered behind the steel shield of the aft flak gun, returned fire from both sides of it, reminding their adversaries that their cover was non-existent. Their only chance to present a lesser target was to fling themselves flat on the mezzanine until their two unexpectedly armed opponents were forced to withdraw and reload. Nevertheless, all they had to do was make it to the far end of the mezzanine level and it would be an easy jump onto the _U-505_ 's foredeck, with their prey well within arm's reach.

"Runnin' low on ammo here, cuz!" Ray shouted as he stuffed another half-dozen bullets into the chambers of his gun.

"Yeah, welcome to the club!" Kowalski came back. His blood ran cold as he realised that he had only one clip left in his jacket pocket. He crammed the second-to-last one into his gun, worked the slide and stood up straight, Ray alongside him, both of them brazenly blasting away as if they were seventy years earlier, the flak gun jammed, and their two handguns the only defense they had against an avenging dive bomber.

Their diversion, however, had so far proved worthy. As the two pistol-toters rushed further up the mezzanine ramps, seeking to outflank the Rays, the machine-gunner remained astern to keep them pinned down and allow his cronies to gain position - but they missed Fraser and Lerschen altogether. Taking advantage of the break in firing the gunmen had taken to gain position, Mountie and author had together dropped back into the _U-505_ and made a mad dash for the bow entrance. With Kowalski and Vecchio keeping the bad guys busy, they dashed down the stairs from the doorway, hung in the shelter of the bow for no more than a few seconds, and bolted for the near side of the exhibit hall once certain that their would-be assassins were occupied. Once underneath the mezzanine, protected entirely from fire by the _U-505,_ they ran like hell for the hall exit.

"They're clear!" Kowalski shouted.

"Go!" Ray answered.

"What?"

"You want me to go?"

"Nah, I can go!"

"Then _go!"_ Fighting off a wave of deja vu, both men leaped upright, guns blazing. This time they found their mark - Ray managed to inflict an injury of some magnitude on the man with the H &K, whilst Kowalski dropped the man with the Mauser, unable to watch with satisfaction as he fell dead to the mezzanine floor. The element of surprise was enough for the pair to jump unscathed from opposite sides the flak-gun platform onto the main deck. Even as they pounded forward, they knew the surprise had worn off once the thug with the H&K had recovered and straightened up, opening a withering fire and sending them scuttling for cover in front of the conning tower.

Breathing heavily, they waited until the last bullet had ricocheted off the side of the tower and dashed madly toward the open hatch to the galley, firing all the way. The gambit worked - they'd caught the H&K carrier in the middle of reloading his weapon and proved more than a match for the one with the Sig Sauer. Ray expended his last bullet as he flung himself feet first down the hatch, Kowalski just above him, his own last clip half empty. Feeling like a pair of submarine sailors subjected to endless diving drills, they raced forward, their shortness of breath far in the back of their minds, and emerged from the boat at the forward entrance. Just as it had throughout its years of service, the _U-505_ shielded them to the last. Its stout hull interceded in the line of fire from the two gunmen running back down the mezzanine, and by the time desperation set in and the two hoods brought their weapons not quite to bear, the two Rays had vanished through the hall exit.

They met up with Fraser and Lerschen at the top of the stairs on the main level, giving in to aching joints and scratchy lungs, cocking grateful ears to the multitude of sirens outside the museum. As the first responding cops came running, Ray fairly collapsed onto a bench, wiping his profusely sweating forehead. Lerschen plopped down heavily next to him, his head almost between his knees. Fraser remained upright, wincing as he rubbed his back: Kowalski leaned heavily against the wall and probed the graze wound on his arm, glad of the backup.

The first two cops, both decked out in riot gear, skidded to a halt before them. "Are any of you fellas hurt?" the senior patrolman demanded.

"It ain't bad," Kowalski gasped out, stroking the graze with his thumb. "Won't get me a....a bit part on 'Chicago Hope', anyway."

"Yeah, we're good," Ray puffed. "But don't even think about goin' down there without backup. Those guys are as armed and dangerous....as a Navy SEAL team."

Exchanging consternated looks, the two cops heeded his advice, beckoning for some of their more heavily armed fellow officers to join them. Cautiously they started down the stairs, soon lost to the four men's view.

Fraser eyed Ray, who was bent heavily over, massaging his right hand. "Ray?" he questioned.

Grimacing, Ray looked up. "Hurts like hell," he grunted. "Never done that before."

"Gotta remember the six P's, Vecchio," Kowalski panted.

"There are only five P's, Stan," Fraser frowned.

"Hell there are. There's six of 'em, Fraser. 'Proper preparation prevents p' - "

"Pistol qualifications can always be renewed, but it's hard to say the same of gunshot wounds," Fraser interrupted. "Let me have a look at that one." Wincing, Kowalski stripped off his jacket and rolled up his short sleeve.

"Aahhh, son of a...." he snapped, spreading a hand. "They got me right on the tat!"

"Oh, dear," Fraser muttered, poring critically over the graze.

"'Oh, dear'?" Kowalski repeated. "I got this ink when I was sixteen, Fraser! This is, like, this is more of a 'heads will roll', or a 'there's gonna be blood', or a 'f - "

"Ugly as it is, it's somewhat of a blessing in disguise," Fraser said. "This is a clue as to our attackers' identity, Stan. It was a hollow-point round, although I'm afraid I can't place the manufacturer or the country of origin."

"You mean to tell me you can't put your finger on the gun _or_ the bullet? Geez, Fraser, you're just, uh, on a roll today. Real torrent of useful information, that's you."

"But what the hell does it mean?" Lerschen sat up, holding his hands plaintively open. "I mean, besides the fact those guys were hell-bent on killing me, what's this whole rat-infested business boil down to?"

"I didn't recognise one of the weapons used in the attack," Fraser said ominously. "This graze was caused by the man with the Heckler and Koch, which means the unidentified weapon belonged to one of his partners."

"We got one of 'em," Ray said suddenly. He sat up straight, spreading his hands. "Kowalski, the guy you nailed up on the mezzanine! Suppose there's a lead on him somewhere?"

"Well, I sure as hell am not goin' back down there to find out," Kowalski asserted.

 

As it turned out, none of them needed venture back to the lower level. For nearly a half hour they braced themselves for more gunshots that never rang out. Cross their fingers as they might that the two dozen or so first responders had taken the two hoods without a fight, they couldn't imagine such heavily armed, heartless and determined criminals giving up that easily. The half hour finally ended with the sergeant in charge calling all clear, summoning the rest of the response team to start policing the exhibit hall and the _U-505_ itself for evidence. Shell casings were in abundance, as were the dozens of bullets that had ricocheted from the bulkheads and come to rest on the decks or buried themselves in softer surfaces.

The next half hour seemed to pass with the pace of uphill molasses as the four men waited for some word on their assailants. Finally the sergeant in charge jogged back up the stairs to the main level, taking off his ball cap, rubbing his forehead on his sleeve and approaching them at a brisk pace.

"No one alive and breathing down there," the sergeant said, tossing up his hands. "Those two scuzzbags must have escaped out an emergency exit before we surrounded the museum."

"What about the dead guy?" Ray asked.

"Lucky it was him and not you." The sergeant held up an odd-looking pistol with a boxy stock, encased in a plastic evidence bag. "He had this on him. It burned through his ammo so fast he only had one clip left."

"May I?" Fraser said, reaching for the bag. He plucked it from the sergeant's conceding hand and stared at the pistol, squinting deeply. "Interesting."

"What?" Kowalski shrugged. "It's a gun."

"It's not just a gun, Stan. It's a German-made Mauser C-ninety-six automatic. This is the weapon I couldn't place. Production of this model ceased just before World War Two."

"Oh, this is rich," Ray grumbled. "A German sailor, a German submarine and now a German pistol? What next, you wanna interrogate everybody in the city who's wearing lederhosen?"

"Well, that's just silly, Ray," Fraser frowned. "No, I think we should speak to Lieutenant Welsh. If he knows something about what's been taking place recently on the St. Lawrence, perhaps he can steer us in the direction of possible suspects." He handed the gun back to the sergeant and then eyed Lerschen, who had been staring fixedly at the floor for several minutes. Finally the overwrought author sucked in a deep breath and lifted his head.

"There's something I didn't tell you," Lerschen said, exhaling loudly. "Didn't seem worth mentioning till now."

"Spill," Kowalski said.

"Erich and I were originally going to meet at the beginning of this week, on Monday. But he called me from Quebec City. Said he'd found out something about the _U-896,_ something he couldn't tell me within anybody else's earshot. So he changed the meeting to today....after closing time."

"Somethin' tells me these rascals were, uh....they were the last ones to see him alive," Kowalski said, rubbing sweat from his upper lip. "Right before they killed him."

"All for worthless old junk from a sunken U-boat?" Ray said in disbelief.

"If that were all there was to it," Fraser said in doom-fating tones, "I don't think they would have gone to this much trouble to tie up a loose end."


	11. The Bosses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned this story to Catherine Bruhier at RCW 139. Her advice was, Just make sure Elaine goes to the bar after work.
> 
> Well, Catherine, if you're reading this, here you go. ;)

Ramona Hernandez had long ago learned better than to take her holster off before entering a pub, on duty or off. Admittedly, she liked what she saw in the mirror every morning, and she thought of it fondly throughout the day - but as an unfortunate fact of life, too many other people, mostly of the male persuasion, liked what they saw as well. Yet even long ago she'd known enough to leave the holster's principal content in the glove box in her car, rather than risk an armed confrontation with some drunk lowlife in the pub. Even empty, the holster was a Godsend for making the endless legions of scumbags think twice about hitting on her.

She took the entrance to the pub at a relaxed gait, immediately spotting Elaine at the middle of the bar with a salt-rimmed lime margarita in front of her. Noting in her peripheral vision that the four or five men clustered around the pool table at the back of the pub had already stood up and taken notice, she pulled her jacket off, revealing the holster - still carrying its ammunition clips - and detective shield slung over her shoulders. She shot an icy, unflinching stare toward the pool players to increase the intimidation factor as she pulled up a stool beside Elaine, casually tossing her jacket over its back.

"Hey," Elaine greeted her briefly. "That was fast."

"Friday night, isn't it?" Hernandez said with a grin. As the bartender approached, she ordered a White Russian and then stretched her arms out across the countertop. "They dropped off the autopsy report on Elizabeth Merino right after shift change. Want to hear it now or on Monday?"

"Give me the short version."

"She was drowned. She died at least three days before she turned up in Chicago."

Elaine shook her head, clicking her tongue in disapproval. "No way it could have been an accident, I'm guessing."

"Nope. Not judging from her muscle contractions and the hematomas around her neck and shoulders." Nodding her thanks to the bartender, Hernandez picked up her drink but stared at it, hesitant to take a sip in the middle of this conversation.

"Sick. What a way to kill someone. How about this old guy, Erich Wichmann?"

"He's three times out, but considering that there wasn't any external trauma, I'm willing to bet he died from the same cause." Finally Hernandez pulled at her drink, but it was all she could do to keep it from going down the wrong way, especially with the Metric song 'Breathing Underwater' playing on the pub's sound system. "By the way, did I hear Mr. Red-Hot Mountie-Man asking about this kidnapping epidemic yesterday?"

"That you did," Elaine said pensively. "Boy, I'll tell you, Mona. If it was Annabelle who went missing, I'd have long since dropped everything and gone after her with every gun and grenade in the armoury."

Hernandez nodded and opened her mouth, but then she thought better of mentioning that Elaine's daughter was considerably below the target age group - it wouldn't make much of a difference for her partner's motherly frame of mind. Instead she moved on to door number three.

"You know, I've never had kids of my own, but all those times my mom caught up with me playing cops and robbers with the other kids on the block, or three blocks away....I thought I'd never hear the end of it, but now that it's cops and kidnappers, it's like, okay, now I get it."

"How about when it's cops and murderers?"

"Yeah, I can't even make heads or tails of this one. A middle-aged woman and an old man with absolutely no conceivable connection to each other, and here they are both dead, most likely from the same cause in the same place. The coincidence is unreal."

"Well, maybe it's not a coincidence," Elaine said matter-of-factly. She glanced past Hernandez, ready to warn her if yet another unscrupulous character was about to pull up a stool and put an unwanted move on her - but she recognised this character as anything but unscrupulous.

"Ray!" she said in surprise. "How did you know where to find us?"

"Not much you can sneak past Frannie," Ray grinned. He marched behind the two women and plunked himself down on the stool beside Elaine. "How goes the battle?"

"Funny, I'm beginning to think of it as more of a campaign," Elaine said dryly. "Looks like we have a cause of death on our first victim, Merino. But as for your friend Wichmann....afraid that won't be along for a while yet."

"Well, I dropped by to let you know we might be on our way to a suspect," Ray said. "Some gun-toting punks tried to jump us at the MSI a couple of hours ago. We took out one of 'em and we're waitin' on an I.D., but two will get you ten they're the same ones who killed Wichmann."

"How do you know?" Hernandez asked.

"They were looking to bump off a friend of his who's got more information. The guy's okay, he's with Fraser and Kowalski right now."

"Seems to me you haven't got much left to worry about," Elaine commented, taking a nip of her margarita.

Ray rubbed his lip and swallowed. "Look, Elaine, I need a favour. Can you push the autopsy on Wichmann? Fraser's got this crazy idea that he was killed somewhere up in southern Quebec, and he's lookin' for proof of it."

"Fraser's got a crazy idea?" Elaine said with a wry smile.

"I know, what are the odds, right?" Ray chortled.

"Okay, I'll see what I can do," Elaine nodded.

"Might not be all that crazy, you know," Hernandez pointed out. "If southern Quebec was his last stomping ground, that's right across the border from upstate New York, and that's where the trash cars came from. Maybe you're right, Elaine - maybe it isn't a coincidence after all."

**********

"Oh, Peter!"

At first Fraser and Kowalski weren't sure they had come to the right house. The voice on the other side of the doorway sounded familiarly deep and throaty enough - but it sounded far, far more genial than either of them had ever thought possible.

"Hello, Harding," Lerschen said, reaching across the threshold to shake hands with Welsh. "Hope you don't mind me just dropping in like this."

"No, not at all. Come on in."

"I brought a couple of old friends of yours." Lerschen entered the house and turned to one side, revealing Fraser and Kowalski standing on the steps.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant," Fraser greeted the older man.

Welsh's smile vanished instantaneously. He regarded the two men with a scowl, then said to Lerschen: "I thought you said they were old friends of mine, not two of the biggest thorns I ever had poking holes in my side!"

"I beg your pardon, sir?" Fraser blinked in confusion.

Kowalski was about to clear his throat surreptitiously when he saw Welsh's face soften, breaking back into a wide smile. "I'm kidding, you two! C'mon, come in. Welcome, welcome." He reached forward to shake Fraser's hand. "I imagine it pleases me to see you again, Fraser."

"Likewise, sir," Fraser said.

"And Kowalski, either you just came back from the future, or we're both getting old and grey," Welsh went on, shaking hands with Kowalski.

"Yeah, well, sir, if, uh, if Fraser's in on it, you, uh, you never can tell which," Kowalski said, smiling thinly.

"I can tell you this, I retired ten years ago. Better start calling me Harding if you know what's good for you."

"Yes, s....ssssure."

"So where's your other half? The third biggest thorn I ever had in my side?"

"Oh, you mean...." Fraser said, gesturing toward the door. "Ray is visiting family. But he sends you his regards."

"I'm sure he does. Tell him to drop by if you see him. We got plenty of old times to kick around." Waving toward the living room, Welsh led his three friends away from the front door. His living room had a distinctly nautical ambiance. The bookcases were made from the wheel stands of square-rigged sailing ships, of which two oil paintings hung on either side of a barometer on the wall near the front window. Several ship lanterns hung from a wooden chandelier above the tables and chairs. On the shelf of the bay window rested painstakingly assembled models of sailing sloops, and the mantel above the gas fireplace held two models of eighteen-pounder long cannons. Between them rested a well-used, round white captain's hat, and behind it, the model sailing yacht Welsh had once displayed in his office.

Welsh himself, in his advanced age, much better fit the image of a yacht captain than a police lieutenant. He moved much slower than Fraser and Kowalski had ever seen, he had gained a considerable amount of weight, and he wore a navy-blue blazer with gold buttons over a burgundy sweater vest. He didn't quite look more at home on _Gilligan's Island,_ but Kowalski still didn't think he would ever get used to seeing this side of his old boss.

"Can I get you fellas anything?" Welsh offered.

"Ah, no, thank you kindly," Fraser said, raising one hand. Kowalski similarly declined. Lerschen, however, still exhibiting frayed nerves from the shootout, seemed to jump at the chance.

"Haven't got any rice wine handy, have you?" he asked.

"Just so happens I do." Waving the three men to sit down, Welsh opened a cabinet whose doors were fashioned from old wooden rudders, pulled down two glasses and a bottle of rice wine, and procured a small jug of rum for himself. "Well, so would this happen to be something more than just a social visit?"

"As a matter of fact, sir, yes," Fraser said. "We were wondering, when was the last time you were on the St. Lawrence River?"

"Just back at the beginning of August. My wife and I joined some old friends for deep-sea fishing in the Gulf."

"See any, ah, any suspicious activity on the river?" Kowalski asked.

Welsh chuckled as he turned away from the cabinet and passed Lerschen the rice-wine glass. "One man's suspicious is another man's typical. Now what's out of the ordinary about a couple hundred fishing boats, merchant ships, pleasure craft, and cruise liners bobbing back and forth on an inland waterway?"

As he sank onto the sofa, he knew he'd struck a nerve when the long, awkward pause took hold, the other three glancing at each other, none of them certain how to broach a subject they admittedly found stranger than a three-dollar bill. Nonetheless, they'd come to Welsh's house for only one reason.

Finally Lerschen took a deep, uncomfortable breath before he answered. "Harding, we're, um....we're wondering if there's any news on the _U-896."_

Welsh shrugged, some of his old familiar cynicism visible. "And what, pray tell, is so suspect about a sunken U-boat?"

"A man who served on her was found dead in Chicago yesterday," Fraser explained.

"Well, if he was old enough to have served on her before she was sunk, he could have been found dead at Disney World and it wouldn't surprise me."

"He didn't die of old age," Kowalski clarified. "Not sure what he died of, but he was a friend of Vecchio's, and, uh, Vecchio doesn't think he was anywhere close to dyin' naturally."

"Oh, so this has personal implications, I see. Well, I can tell you the salvage site has been pretty quiet lately. When we made this voyage last year, a research vessel was moored over the wreck."

"Trying to figure out how to free the boat from the riverbed without damaging her?" Lerschen surmised.

"Looked that way," Welsh nodded. "We didn't anchor anywhere nearby ourselves. But when we came back upriver a week or so later, the research vessel was moored at the same spot along with a tugboat. Haven't seen anyone drop anchor there since."

"Say, I don't get it," Kowalski piped up. "Why's it so important for this old sub to get raised from the dead anyway?"

"Remember what I said about a menace to navigation?" Lerschen reminded him. "Ships get bigger, their draughts get deeper, and the river continues to pile bottom sediment up on the wreck in an area that's prone to heavy fog. Plus, water levels in the Great Lakes aren't quite where they were when the _U-896_ went down. Eventually a large enough freighter will run the risk of grounding, maybe keel damage."

Fraser's forehead furrowed quizzically. "About how far from the north bank were they?"

"Mile and a half, maybe two," Welsh shrugged again.

"Which at that general longitude corresponds to a depth of less than a hundred feet," Fraser mused. "Well within the safe range for scuba divers."

"So what's your dead guy have to do with all this?" Welsh asked.

"He and I both heard the word that the _U-896_ was to be salvaged," Lerschen answered. "So we went up to the north shore to have a look around. But we were getting ready for another meeting at the MSI when he suddenly changed the meeting date and time. Your Mountie friend here seems to think he knew something was wrong and it cost him his life."

"Well, let me give you one direction to go in," Welsh said, pointing at Fraser. "She may have been sunk in a Canadian waterway, but the _U-896_ is still the property of the German Navy under maritime law. Have some of your colleagues up north contact the German embassy in Ottawa and find out if they know anything about this operation. If it turns out they don't know anything about it at all, you're well on your way to a motive."

"Understood," Fraser said.

"I dunno about you guys, but I'm dyin' to know what that motive might be," Kowalski said. "I mean, this damn boat is seventy years old and sittin' on the bottom like a, like the _Robert MacDonald."_

"You mean the _Robert MacKenzie?"_ Lerschen said smugly, not bothering to ask how Kowalski even knew the name.

"Yeah. I knew that. But still, what's so special about it that somebody would have to kill the old-timer over it?"

"Now there you've got a point. The only remarkable thing about the _U-896_ was that she was a test bed for a snorkel-type ventilator, which would let her run on diesel engines instead of electric motors when she was submerged. But it's long since obsolete. Even now the Germans are developing new air-independent propulsion systems that work just as well as nuclear power, and without any of the hazards."

"Well, once again, we're starting with what we know," Fraser said. "But what we _don't_ know is a different realm altogether. Now perhaps there's a secret about the _U-896_ that Mr. Wichmann has now taken to his grave, at the behest of some clandestine operator on the St. Lawrence River."

"Whoever it is has a fair amount of cover," Welsh pointed out. "As I'm sure you well know, Fraser, the Canadian Navy and the RCMP marine division haven't got much time or justification to go searching every last paddleboat on the St. Lawrence. And even if they did, it's been a while now since anybody dropped anchor over the wreck. There isn't even a marker buoy on the site."

"There isn't?" Suddenly Lerschen looked baffled. "But then how the hell is a cruise liner or a ten-thousand-ton container ship supposed to avoid the wreck?"

"Your guess is as good as anyone's, Peter. Whatever the secret about that boat is, somebody's awfully anxious to keep it. You already know they're willing to kill for it, and if they'd put millions of tons of international shipping at risk as well....I shudder to think of what they're trying to hide."

"So, uh....what do you want us to do?" Kowalski said, making a questioning gesture with his hands.

"I've got no business telling you to do anything anymore, Ray," Welsh said frankly. "I haven't carried a shield for a long time. Spent my whole career making the streets a safer place and now I'm just enjoying the open water in my retirement." He pointed his finger at Kowalski now, his face suddenly hardening: Lerschen had never seen him so dour, but Fraser and Kowalski knew the expression all too well. The last time they'd seen it, Welsh had still been in his office at District 27. 

"But I'll tell you this," Welsh rumbled. "If somebody's making my open water an unsafe place to be, what I really want you to do is find out who it is, how they're doing it and why - and above all, watch your asses damned closely."

**********

_"What do you mean, you missed him? How the sam hill could you miss him? You had a sitting duck, for God's sake!"_

"Yeah, well, he wasn't alone!"

_"Not alone - don't give me not alone. We already got the old guy out of the way. Now let's try this again. How in the name of hell did you let this happen?!"_

"Look, this guy had three others with him. What was I supposed to do, kill them all?"

_"That'd be a start. Or maybe I should have had you take out the old guy and given you an easier target."_

"What if I told you two of his buddies were armed?"

_"And you were what, fingered?"_

"We lost Fostoria, damn it! I didn't think anyone could take him down, and neither did you!"

_"That's where you're wrong. Judging from this, anyone can get taken down, especially when slugheads like you allow it to happen."_

"Well, then, what do you want from me, ritual suicide?"

_"You'd save me some dirty work, that's for damn sure. But now the cat's out and we're not even at quota yet. You better get the hell out of Dodge and hope you find some way to make up for screwin' this up. You got me?"_

"All right, so you got any bright ideas, then?"

_"Well, from here it sure sounds like I have to think of everything. Bring some more of that precious cargo with you."_

"We'll have it. We'll pick it up from the hotel first thing tomorrow."

_"You damn well better. You show up here again without it, and I'll make you wish your old man never even met your mother."_


	12. Discuss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a heads-up, this is a very, shall we say, expository chapter....but it does have a few of those endearing little Due South quirks here and there - and a tight twist at the end. Now the party's gettin' started!

"I could sure go for some Dunkin' action right now," Lerschen said, exhaling a rapid breath as he squeezed his bulk out of the GTO's passenger side. Twisting round, he reached for the recliner mechanism on the back of the seat to let Fraser out.

"Well, wherever you may be staying," Fraser offered as he climbed out of the back seat, "I'm sure any 0ne of the civilian aides here would be happy to furnish you with the locations nearby." He glanced obliquely toward the precinct entrance, noticing that the Riviera was already parked a couple of spaces away.

"No, no, that's okay." Lerschen shrugged his shoulders, rather extraneously. "It's just, coffee is good for the nerves. I'm kinda feeling mine right now, that's all. Never had to deal with the police much before."

"Yeah, 'cause, y'know, God knows what they'll say about an author type runnin' around with a bunch of cops like this," Kowalski snickered.

"It's not unheard of," Lerschen said affably. "Doesn't the name Richard Castle mean anything to you?"

"He's a prolific author of detective novels, if I'm not mistaken," Fraser said, holding open the door to the precinct.

"I tend to think of him as a modern American male Agatha Christie." Lerschen paused in the doorway, smiling knowingly. "But you know where he finds his inspiration, though, don't you?"

As they headed up the stairs and down the corridors to the squad room, they encountered Ray coming out of the break room with a large cup of coffee in his hand. To Fraser it seemed as likely as anything that he had driven Francesca to work that morning to get an early start on collating NCIC data. He looked nothing if not morose: even seeing the three of them coming down the hallway didn't serve to brighten his mood.

"Hey, Benny," he grunted.

"Good morning, Ray," Fraser replied. "Everything all right? You seem a bit piqued this morning."

"Aah, rough night," Ray sighed as they headed for the squad room. "Gina came home late so I stayed up to wait for her. Gave her a good little chat. She had the backtalk loaded and ready, but she's Frannie's daughter and she's fourteen - what are you gonna do?"

"Still, Ray, very magnanimous of you," Fraser complimented him. Together they pushed through the squad-room doors, Kowalski and Lerschen trailing behind them. At once they spotted Elaine and Hernandez in Ray's old corner, standing at opposite ends of a large white marker board. Francesca was crossing the bullpen toward them, carrying several thick folders' worth of NCIC reports.

"Good morning, Elaine," Fraser said. "Very much appreciated, your coming in on a Saturday."

"Guess they don't have weekends in Canada either," Francesca muttered under her breath.

"You can thank Ray for telling us about your little scrape at the MSI yesterday," Elaine said.

"Consider it already done," Fraser assured her. "May I present Mr. Peter Lerschen, who was probably the last one to have contact with Mr. Erich Wichmann before his death. This is Sergeant Besbriss, and Detective Hernandez."

"How do you do." Lerschen shook hands with both women pleasantly enough, but Fraser fell completely mute when a smiling Hernandez held her hand toward him. Unsure of how to respond, he lifted his own hand and felt his speech centers go absolutely numb when she grasped it, still smiling, and squeezed gently.

"Glad to have you with us," Elaine said to Lerschen, trying not to laugh at the Frasernandez spectacle. "Care for a cup of coffee?"

"Is the patriarch Orthodox?" Lerschen said eagerly.

Elaine raised her eyebrows, surprised momentarily but soon warming to the affirmation. She reached over to a file cabinet behind the marker board and produced two styrofoam cups, both warm to the touch. "So how about we start from the top," she said, handing Lerschen one cup. "When did you see Wichmann last?"

"About two weeks ago," Lerschen related with a thankful draught of the coffee. "We were conducting some research together up on the Quebec north shore." He went on to describe the few days he and Wichmann had spent revisiting the latter's old haunts, whilst Hernandez began writing notes on the marker board.

Fraser squinted at the notes already scrawled across the top of the board. At the top center, T.C. SAWCHUK BUILDING & HAULAGE, MASSENA, NY/CONST. DEBRIS had been written and underlined. The names 'MERINO' and 'WICHMANN' had been written and boxed beneath the header, family-tree style. Beneath 'MERINO' were scrawled the notes, 'Antique Dealer' and 'No Next of Kin??'. 

"Hey, Fraser," Kowalski muttered from his shoulder. "You remember that whole episode with the _Wailin' Wankey?"_

"The _Wailing Yankee,_ you mean?"

"Yeah, yeah, that one. I got thinkin' about that after we saw Welsh. Remember the gold?"

"Like it was yesterday."

"Well, I looked on Wikipedia, and I read about a few thousand tons' worth of U-boats that were smugglin' Germany's gold reserves outa the country late in the war. Y'know, when it wasn't lookin' so good, Hitler was hell-bent for leather to hide it all where nobody'd ever think to look."

"Actually, his objective was to trade with Japan and neutral nations for war materiel, since Germany's own economy was being bombed into nothingness and its military was already stretched beyond limits," Fraser muttered.

"Well, whatever he had in his psycho-ass mind, s'pose this is one of those U-boats, and, uh, somebody doesn't want anybody else findin' the gold?"

"Anything's possible, I suppose." Fraser was less than convinced, but for now he would let Kowalski believe what he wanted to believe. He tugged at his earlobe, watching Hernandez make further notes under 'WICHMANN' as Lerschen talked. 'U-boat Survivor', then 'Motive?'. He thought back to the shooting incident at the museum and stood quietly with his hands clasped behind his back, waiting for a chance to break in with his own findings.

"....and that was the last time I ever saw him," Lerschen finished. "That afternoon I took a ferry back to the south shore, and then I drove back to Vermont the next day."

"Did you hear from him at all before you left for Chicago?" Hernandez asked.

"Actually, yeah, last Saturday afternoon. Erich called me at home and said he wanted to change the meeting from Monday to yesterday. I hadn't given him my number, so if he went to the trouble of getting it through my publisher, I figured it must have been something pretty serious."

"Like what?"

"Like something else he'd found out about the U-boat. That was all he said he could tell me over the phone. He wanted to change the meeting to a place and time where the walls had no ears." Parenthetically, Lerschen added: "Those were his words, not mine."

"Why wouldn't he just come visit you at home, then?" Hernandez went on. "You're not that far away in northern Vermont."

"I think he wanted to keep my family in the clear. And after what happened yesterday, I can't say I blame him."

"Besides, he was all about privacy when it came to his past," Ray yawned. "The guy would literally give you the shirt off his back, but ask him about anything prior to nineteen forty-six and he'd clam right up."

"Consider also Mr. Lerschen's would-be assassins," Fraser put in. "If we are dealing with a criminal element, it stands to reason Mr. Wichmann wanted to keep this matter as secret as possible until the authorities could be notified."

"Yeah, but which authorities?" Kowalski said. "Say he knew somethin' was queer, why wouldn't he tell the local cops or the Mounties?"

"Maybe he didn't get the chance before the killers got to him," Elaine said. "Which brings us to the I.D. on the guy you took down in the museum yesterday. Frannie?"

"First name that came up on him was Brad Fostoria," Francesca said, hefting a thick folder. "A professional. Used a book's worth of aliases anywhere from Sault Ste. Marie down to Mexico City. And his rap sheet read like a diversity statement - among other things, he was wanted for truck-jacking, armed robbery, smuggling, and even jailbreak. You guys are lucky you survived a run-in with him."

"Guess we are at that," Lerschen sighed heavily, realising for the first time just how close he'd come to being riddled with bullet holes. "But now I've got a question - how does that account for him having possession of an antique German army-issue pistol? You have any idea how hard they are to find?"

"Used to say the same thing about my car," Ray mumbled.

"Well, we may be getting close to an answer to that as well," Elaine said. "Mr. Lerschen, does the name Elizabeth Merino have any meaning for you?"

Beatless, Lerschen shook his head with pursed lips. "Never heard of her. May I ask how she's involved?"

"She's our first victim of the week," Francesca piped up, her tone somewhat more enthusiastic than before. "We found out she was an itinerant antique dealer working from northeast Pennsylvania. And so far the only connection between her and Wichmann is they both showed up dead in the same place, and it looks like they both got socked in upstate New York."

Ray rolled his eyes in annoyance. "They didn't get _socked_ anywhere, Frannie. But they could just as easily have gotten _whacked_ in southern Quebec."

"Okay, so they got whacked," Francesca snipped back, throwing up her hands. "They got socked. They got clobbered, they got - cold-cocked, whatever!"

Kowalski shook his head and smirked - he might have known Francesca's enthusiasm stemmed from an eagerness to toss out a misused cop slang. She wasn't quite as quick to curb her irritation when her desk phone rang. "Squad room," she answered, dropping from enthusiastic to downright acerbic. "Yeah, hold on a sec." She turned toward Fraser, holding the receiver his way. "It's for you, Frase."

In two long strides Fraser was beside Francesca's desk, acquiring the receiver. "Staff Sergeant Fraser," he answered. "Ah, good morning, Maggie."

No sooner had the name dropped from Fraser's tongue than Kowalski immediately lost all interest in the investigation. He sidled over to the desk and stood beside Fraser, waiting for a sign that the conversation was about to end.

Meanwhile, Elaine crossed her arms and enquired of Lerschen: "So Wichmann never mentioned the name either?"

"Didn't even breathe it."

"Did you meet anyone in the area?"

"Well, nobody we knew. We interviewed a couple of the locals about the recent history of the area, but that was it. It goes without saying that a lot's changed in seventy years - most of the places where Erich and his shipmates took cover aren't around anymore. Neither are most of those shipmates, for that matter."

For the last sixteen hours Ray had been wanting to ask how the _U-896_ had been sunk and abandoned in such shallow water to begin with, but he still couldn't find a relevant moment to pose the question. Scratching his cheek, he ambled toward the marker board. "Hey, Elaine," he said, pointing at 'MERINO'. "What's this about her next of kin?"

"We couldn't find any," Francesca jumped in before Elaine could answer. "No husband, no boyfriend, no kids on record. But here's where it gets weird - the coroner swears up and down that she had stretch marks all over her stomach. She was pregnant once upon a time, no matter what anybody says."

Ray frowned without taking his eyes from the board. "Any idea how long ago?"

"No way to know for sure, but she was in her early fifties, so her offspring couldn't be that far up the hill," Elaine said. "Why?"

"While we're at it, we might as well plunk down another big piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit," Ray said tiredly. "Wichmann's daughter and granddaughter. They come up here lookin' for him and disappear off the face of the earth. Where do they figure into this?"

"God forbid they were murdered as well," Lerschen murmured.

"If they were, their bodies have yet to turn up," Elaine said. "But Ray's got a point. It could be related to his death, or it could be a coincidence."

"Like I said yesterday, if it was just Lexa that we lost, I'd be a lot more willing to believe in coincidence," Ray said darkly. "But Kat's missing, too, and now it's lookin' like this Merino lady had a kid nobody knows about. Makes me think there's more to it, maybe somebody didn't want 'em finding out Wichmann had been killed."

"These girls have been disappearing like ghosts for over a month," Hernandez said. "And because none of them are local, it's making any leads that much harder to come by. It's like trying to catch a shadow. But tell me this, Vecchio: how could two homicides at the north end of nowhere - barely even connected to each other - possibly be related to all this Amber Alerting around the South Shore?"

Sighing, Ray shook his head. "I don't know."

Kowalski stared intently at Fraser, all but ready to snatch the receiver from his hand if he didn't relinquish it soon. Fraser, however, remained unruffled, facing away from him. "I'd not worry about it, Maggie. I've conferred personally with the German ambassador on one or two occasions, and I found him nothing if not cordial. Well, I know, but Constable Kennedy is actually quite fond of jelly doughnuts, so I doubt somehow it was purely accidental." Fraser smiled with amusement at Maggie's response, not quite a second before he noticed Kowalski leaning toward him. "Ah, Maggie, Ray is here, and I think he's about to start channelling a border collie. Would you like to speak to him? All right, very well. Love you, too." He handed the receiver to Kowalski, who mockingly hung out his tongue in imitation of a thirsty dog.

"Hey, Maggie, it's me," he grinned. "Yeah. Long time, no chat. Hey, listen, I forgot to tell you last time - I wanted to give you my phone number, y'know, just in case you gotta talk to Fraser and, er, you can't reach him at the consulate. Well, yeah, but he's not always at the station house either. Yeah, so anyway...."

Pointedly tuning out the conversation, Fraser rejoined the gathering in front of the marker board, studying the recently added notes. Hernandez had written "Missing Relatives" under Wichmann's name, adding a pair of large bold question marks on either side of the line, and she had circled the two question marks regarding Merino's next of kin.

"What'd your sister have to say?" Elaine asked.

"Another Canadian girl went missing Thursday last," Fraser said, approaching the board. "May I?" he asked of Hernandez.

"Anything you need," she smiled, lightly brushing his hand as she passed him the marker.

Fraser took a much-needed moment to compose himself before he continued. "Her family was attending a soccer game at the University of Notre Dame where her sister is enrolled," he said, drawing a replicant of his flowchart on the board. "After a tie-breaking goal, which as I understand it incurred a great deal of commotion, the girl's mother noticed that she was no longer in the stands. She was thought to have gone to the washroom, but she never returned. It follows the pattern of these abductions occurring at a public venue, which would allow the perpetrators to disappear quickly into a crowd with the victim; that seems to be the only other common denominator. The choice of venue, the time of day, the victims' hometowns, their family background - they're all completely random."

"And that jives with the NCIC's reports on the rest of them," Francesca spoke up. "The first three, the ones who were at that comic con last month? Corvallis, Oregon; Meridian, Mississippi; and Wichita, Kansas. Totally unrelated to each other."

"So every one of them came from a million miles?" Lerschen asked. At Fraser's nod, he went on: "So how did the bad guys know who was local and who wasn't?"

"Maybe they followed 'em?" Ray offered.

"Or they had help identifying the out-of-towners," Fraser said. He didn't get a chance to elaborate before Kowalski called out from Francesca's desk, holding up the telephone receiver.

"Hey, Frannie, this one's for you," he advised. "Sounds kinda hyper."

"Oh, great, another domestic," Francesca grumbled. "I'll be right back." She headed back to her desk, just as one of her staff - easily identifiable by the look of utter terror with which he regarded her - approached the gathering. He slipped a string-bound envelope to Elaine and withdrew quickly, trading places with Kowalski, who stared cross-armed at the additions to the marker board.

Skimming the contents of the envelope, Elaine nodded slowly. "You were right, Mona," she announced. "Wichmann was drowned, too."

Nodding without satisfaction, Hernandez wrote the cause of death on the marker board, drawing a dashed line to both names.

"Does the morgue still have water samples available from both of the corpses?" Fraser asked.

"They should," Elaine said. "You don't think you can tell what kind of puddle it came from, do you?"

"Well, different bodies of water in this region do possess certain distinctive properties," Fraser nodded.

"What different bodies of water, Fraser?" Kowalski said. "I mean, if somebody dumped a body in Lake Calumet, you'd be lucky if it didn't dissolve."

"Lest you forget, Stan - Lake Erie. Which, I might add, is the far western reach of the St. Lawrence Seaway."

"Yeah, way the hell over on the east end. It ain't even close to South Bend, and my sources keep tellin' me that's, it's as far east as these kidnappers have gone, at least so far."

"Yeah, but why are they concentrating around the South Shore?" Hernandez wondered, shaking her head. "There haven't been any similar incidents in other parts of the country. And even as the crow flies, it's almost a thousand miles from the point of origin for those trash cars. I hate to tell you this, Vecchio, but I don't see a tie-in with the murder victims anywhere."

Ray had a sharp verbal riposte at the ready, but he forgot all about it as Hernandez's question sank in. _Why are they concentrating around the South Shore?_ His eyes widened with epiphany as his quiet confrontation with Zuko the previous afternoon came rushing back to him like a giant wave. He might not have had the answer, but suddenly he had an idea where to find it.

All at once he forgot about that as well when he heard Francesca's voice, raised and panicked, shrilling from her desk.

"Oh, my God," she gasped. "Are you sure? I mean, did you see - oh, _Santa Maria, Madre di Cristo!_ Stay there and wait! Don't go anywhere!" She slammed the phone into the cradle and hurried toward her brother, who caught both her arms in an iron grip as he saw the mask of consuming fear her face had become.

"Frannie, what?" Ray demanded. "What the hell happened?"

"Ray - Gi - it's Gina," Francesca stammered. "She was out at the Mall at LaSalle with her cousins and they - when they turned around she was just _gone!_ They tried calling, they tried texting, they looked everywhere for her but she's gone, Ray! _Somebody just took her!"_

"Oh, my God," Ray muttered. Releasing Francesca, he spun around and pushed between Fraser and Kowalski, interrupting the shocked stare between them. _"Elaine!"_ he roared, heading for the squad-room doors at full stride. "We got another one! Gina Vecchio! Age fourteen, five-eight, black hair, wears about ten necklaces! Missing from the Mall at LaSalle less than an hour ago! C'mon, you guys, get your rears in gear already!"

"You heard the man!" Elaine barked. "Stano, you're with Mona and me! Let's go, this is our only chance to blow this thing open!"

Ray could hear no more of Elaine's exhorts as he burst through the double doors, Fraser at his flank and Kowalski and Francesca just behind, the latter hurrying to keep up. The lesser lights milling about the halls leapt out of their path posthaste, some of them bracing for a great black cloud to form above and follow the foursome clear out of the precinct, lightning flashing all the way.

As Ray led the charge down the hall toward the stairs, Lerschen, hoping earnestly that he wasn't about to overstep his bounds, called out from the rear: "Sure you guys don't want to raise the FBI on this?"

"What, are you kidding me?" Ray hollered over his shoulder. "If we bring those bozos into this, we'll never see Gina again! Besides, last thing I need is Ford peacockin' around here until Judgment Day!"

"Sorry I asked," Lerschen conceded, raising his hands in capitulation.

"Mr. Lerschen, we very much appreciate your assistance, but it would appear danger is in the air," Fraser advised. "As is the fate of Detective Vecchio's niece. It will most likely be an intense search, so it might behoove you to stay under police protection here until we can identify those gunmen and bring them into custody."

"Won't argue with that." With scarcely another breath, Lerschen fell behind, promptly going for the cell phone holster at his waist. He knew what his wife would say, but it was high time to call her whilst he still had the opportunity.

Given enough necessity, Ray would have knocked a hole in the wall to the parking lot, but the sight of Francesca and three fifty-something men barging toward the rear exit like an avenging Mack truck caused enough confusion that Ray might as well have drilled a mine escape shaft to the outside. The only thought to enter every mind in the first-floor corridor was _get the hell out of their way._ Ray, Fraser, Kowalski, and Francesca had scarcely burst through the gauntlet when Elaine, Hernandez, and a junior detective reached the bottom of the stairs, carving their own path outside. Somebody, Ray resolved, was going to get it. Cross Carlington Zuko and you could have at least hoped to flee from town and survive, but mess with Ray Vecchio or his family and he would hunt you to the ends of the earth.


	13. On the Hunt

Ray and Francesca made only one brief detour home - Francesca to grab a fistful of Gina's school pictures for showing around the mall, and Ray to find one of his old red emergency dashlights in the basement: by some unheard-of miracle, Maria hadn't found it and chucked it. Fraser and Kowalski, meanwhile, burned straight for the mall, an outdoor plaza with two main avenues and myriad shops on either side of both. Kowalski, better able to recognise the more frequent weekend shoppers on sight, led the path of luckless questioning until Ray and Francesca arrived. At once they met up with Emma, who was understandably perturbed, near the gateway to the north avenue. When she saw Ray, though, her face lit up - brightly but briefly.

"Uncle Ray!" she burst out, clapping both hands to her chin.

"Hey," Ray greeted her in the briefest, sparing only a couple of seconds for a double cheek kiss. "Okay, Emma, look, I wish we had more time for all the _la famiglia,_ but this is a hell of a long way from good. Where's Bianca?"

"She's over at Uncommon Scents," Emma said, pointing down the thoroughfare. "That's where we were when we lost Gina." At a quick, cajoling pat on the arm from Ray, she led the way toward the shop in question. "We just came out of the Bull Moose Music across the way here, and when we turned around she'd just disappeared," she explained.

"I don't get this, Ray," Francesca said anxiously. "You said these S.O.B.s are only targeting out-of-town girls, right? So why would they take Gina away? She's a local!"

"Yeah, but maybe they don't know that," Ray speculated. "Gina came home late last night - "

"She was at the hotel with Bianca and me till almost ten thirty," Emma broke in.

"And you were gonna tell me about this when?" Francesca demanded.

"You had Arabella to worry about," Ray said. "And I told Gina that was enough without waitin' up for her till the cows came home."

"Yeah, and now look how much good it did!"

"Look, Frannie, let's find her first and then we'll try for a spot on Family Feud!" Seeing Bianca sitting on the steps in front of Uncommon Scents, Ray strode into the lead and headed straight toward her, drawing a reaction from her as surprised as Emma's. In the distance he could see Fraser and Kowalski working the sides of the thoroughfare, but first witnesses first.

"Yeah, it's me," he said with a forced grin. "You brought Gina home last night, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Bianca nodded. "She wanted to stay the night, but we only had the one queen bed in our room. Still, getting her to go home was like getting my cat to stay out of the laundry."

"What hotel are you staying at?" Ray asked, his eyebrows knitting together.

"Bryant Park."

"I _knew_ it," Francesca snapped. "Ray, I freggin' _knew it!_ We gotta get over there before we lose her for good!"

"Easy, Frannie, easy!" Ray's voice was a dull roar as he gripped her shoulder. "We don't know that's where they took her. Hell, we don't even know if it's the same guys we're after."

"We'd just come out of Bull Moose Music over here," Bianca said, pointing across the way. "Last time I saw Gina was at the cash register, then she turned to follow us. But when we got over here I turned around to ask her something, and there was no sign of her. Geez, Aunt Frannie, please don't be - "

"Hold that till we find her," Ray cut her off. "Where else did you go?"

"Uh...." Bianca looked at Emma for support. "Before Bull Moose, we, um...."

"Oh, the - the coffee shop!" Emma exclaimed. "Down there, Breaking New Grounds! We went in for cappuccinos before we hit the shops!"

"Okay, hold it here," Ray ordered. "I'll be right back." He strode away, spying in no time the great red spot crossing from one side of the thoroughfare to the other.

"Hey, Benny!" he shouted. Rendezvousing with Fraser and Kowalski in the middle of the lane, he passed the latter a print of Gina's school picture. "You guys can start showing this around. I just talked to Gina's cousins. There's a coffee shop down there, Breaking New Grounds. Why don't you guys go check that out while I ask around in the music store."

"Well, why can't we ask around the music store?" Kowalski shrugged.

"Don't start with me, cuz," Ray grated. "Not unless you wanna go at it with Frannie next." Without waiting for a retort, he whirled around and set off at full stride for the music store.

Seeing Kowalski fuming with clenched fists, Fraser grasped his arm. "We are occupied with much more important matters, Ray," he told him. "Come on." Motioning with his head, he made a beeline for the coffee shop.

The owner of the shop was a fiftyish, slender-figured man with slightly Arabic features. Inevitably the loud proclamation of Fraser's tunic drew his gaze, but when they identified themselves and displayed the photograph, he seemed to shrink slightly with intimidation.

"Ah, she was somewhat bejewelled, that one," he recalled, his accent mildly but noticeably British. "She and her two girl friends, though, they were all quite enthused about the mocha cappuccino. Generous tippers, too."

"Was anybody watchin' them?" Kowalski asked. "Like a guy who looked like he was up to no good?"

"In my business, Detective, you learn quickly not to judge a book by its cover," the shop owner smiled. "I like to think I take all kinds, whether they be college kids, affluent young women, working men, certainly police officers."

"Well, sir, I think what P.I. Kowalski is asking is whether any of your other patrons were paying special attention to her and her cousins," Fraser said.

"Not so that I noticed. Does she have a stalker or something?"

"Worse," Kowalski said. "She was kidnapped only a hundred some-odd feet away from here."

"Well, then, I certainly wish there was more I could help you with," the shop owner said. "But you know who probably could? Edgar over there. He sits in the same spot every single Saturday like a signpost. If he didn't see anything, I couldn't tell you who did." He pointed across the thoroughfare, his finger aiming at a lanky, bald man sitting on a canvas stool, plucking at a three-stringed, arrow-shaped lute. The lute's case lay open at his feet, incubating a pile of small bills and loose change gestating slowly but steadily.

"Thank you kindly," Fraser said. Side by side he and Kowalski crossed the thoroughfare, neither man lifting his eyes from the musician. In less than a minute they stood over him, but he was no more inclined to glance away from his instrument.

"If I ask you a question," he crooned softly to the lute, "are you gonna lie to meeeee....honey, is that your question, 'cause that one is eeeeeasy...."

"What if we ask you a question, are you gonna lie to us?" Kowalski interrupted. At this, Edgar looked up, looking from one unsmiling man to the other. He was bald, unshaven, and didn't seem to have showered for a while, but there was still a twinkle of spirit in his eyes: something clearly kept him going despite his poor fortunes. Music still had that effect on people, Fraser thought to himself, even in this decadent day and age.

"Bullfighter?" Edgar said, eyeing Fraser's tunic.

"No, sir. Staff Sergeant Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police."

"You can tell him the rest another time, Fraser," Kowalski cut him off before Fraser could launch into his usual monologue. "All right, Eddie, here's what it is. This girl got kidnapped from this plaza just a couple of hours ago. You see her?" He held Gina's picture in front of Edgar's nose, watching him carefully. Not two seconds and Edgar's face had contorted in a frown, the twinkle in his eyes sparking with recognition.

"Saw her," he said, his voice low, nasal and sonorous. "With family and with friend."

"Who was the friend, you ever see him before?"

"Not with her. They were in the last moments of a relationship, on one last honeymoon together; he wasn't the type to let go and she wasn't the type to hold on." Edgar began to pluck at the lute again, speaking like a man in a dream. "He said I'll drag you down to your obstinate hell, she shot back I didn't know you knew me so well."

"Wait, wait," Kowalski said, pointing both fingers at him. "You heard what they said to each other while you were sittin' way over here singin' to yourself?"

"Didn't have to," Edgar shrugged. "I seen enough civil wars fought before the bench. She's not out of the woods yet - she never will be if he has his way, it's the only clear path he can see and so he'll never let her leave it."

Kowalski smiled, hands on hips. "Okay, well, what say we find you a clear path to givin' the Shakespeare a rest and givin' us some _real_ answers."

"Well, I wouldn't call his style Shakespearean, Ray," Fraser offered. "In fact, it's much more reminiscent of - "

"Fraser, zip it," Kowalski snapped. "Now listen up, Eddie, you better think about sheddin' some light on the subject unless you wanna get up close and personal with my friend Mr. Steel-Toed Boot here."

Fraser cocked his head as something in Kowalski's threat struck a chord within him. He looked past Edgar's head, squinting at the antique oil lamp hanging from a black metal post beside the stool. It was unlit, but if it were, it undoubtedly gave Edgar more than enough light by which to play his lute well into the late hours of the evening.

"Perhaps light-shedding is just one more service Mr. Edgar offers," Fraser opined.

"Hoover," Edgar muttered under his breath.

"That oil lamp dates back to eighteen seventy-two," Fraser went on. "Handmade by metalworkers descended from the Iroquois, if I'm not mistaken. Such lamps were widely used by lighthouse keepers from the Gulf of St. Lawrence all the way upriver to Montreal."

"Musta set Eddie here back a pretty penny," Kowalski surmised.

"Unless the terms weren't cash," Fraser said. "What was the quid pro quo for that lamp, Edgar?"

"There wasn't any," Edgar said quietly. "One day in Chicago, the cops go into the crowd. On a path of clear light, the music is so loud. Afternoon when the sidewalk's hot, and the shadows too chilly to linger." He looked up at Fraser with a slight smile. "In the dark, a man can't hope to draw a crowd along with his fingers."

"No, but he can cause one to be drawn away from him," Fraser said. "Whoever gave you that lamp enabled you to draw more attention to your music. They used you as a diversion while they kidnapped other young girls - I think it's safe to assume that this isn't the first time or place. I wonder if you wouldn't mind furnishing us with a description."

The look on Edgar's face told Fraser he would be only too glad to cooperate.

 

Ray exited the music store to find Elaine waiting for him, Francesca at her side: there was no sign of Hernandez or the junior detective and Ray could only surmise that they were working the south thoroughfare. Elaine, however, appeared interested only in him and his findings.

"What have you got?" she asked.

"Gonna need your word for this," Ray told her, gesturing over his shoulder. "I got a look at the feed from the security camera, but I'm gonna need your authorisation for them to fork it over."

"Well, what's on it?" Francesca's voice was still full of trepidation.

"Gina comes out at about ten fifty-two. Not two seconds later, a big bulky guy in a black vinyl jacket comes out behind her and holds something up to her back. I can't tell what, but he hauls her off to the east gate." Instinctively Ray moved alongside Francesca as he saw her cover her mouth, trying to stifle a fearful gasp.

"Any markings on the jacket?" Elaine enquired.

"Nah, nothing distinctive. It was a hoodie. You couldn't tell his race or his hairstyle."

"But why Gina?" Francesca asked again, throwing up her hands. "Did they change their minds and start going after local girls all of a sudden?"

"Maybe they made a mistake," Elaine said, her eyes narrowing. "You said Gina was at the hotel with her cousins last night, right?"

"Yeah, and we dropped her off there again on the way to the station this morning."

"So your nieces are registered there - suppose the kidnapper followed them from the hotel, thinking Gina was from out of town as well?"

"Makes sense, but they'd still have to have some way to know who she was hanging around with and where they came from," Ray said.

"Unless somebody at the hotel passed them that information in secret," Elaine said through tight lips.

Only one question was left - who would know the names and the hometowns of the guests. Ray's eyes widened as it hit him: but he didn't get the chance to put it into words ere Fraser and Kowalski approached, the former bearing a letter-sized piece of paper.

"We got us a suspect," Kowalski announced.

"And an accomplice," Fraser added.

"Which one you want first?" Kowalski said to Elaine.

Before she could answer, Fraser cut in: "Well, I believe the accomplice will be an easier mark. We've already met him once before." He handed the piece of paper to Ray, whose eyes flashed with recognition and fury as he studied the innocuous features of the sketch.

"The concierge." His voice and his expression were both reminiscent of a timber rattlesnake. "I'd remember that nose anywhere. I _knew_ something wasn't right about that guy!"

"You'll remember he said that he didn't want to speak of his reason for moving here from Saskatchewan," Fraser said.

"And he'd know the guest list," Elaine said. "You got a sketch of the suspect as well?"

"Witness is working on it," Kowalski said, gesturing backward in Edgar's direction.

"I'll track Mona down and start showing it around," Elaine said. "Meanwhile, you guys hightail it down to the hotel. I want this guy in before we lose him."

"Not as bad as I do," Ray growled, turning on his heel. He made tracks back to the west gate, Francesca hot on his tail. The look Elaine shot at Fraser and Kowalski told both of them that they'd better hurry to catch up and keep an eye on him.

**********

Ray still led the charge when he, Francesca, Fraser, and Kowalski reached the Bryant Park Hotel and ignored the parking pass dispenser at the entrance to the garage. As they crossed the garage toward the stairs to the main lobby, an apprehensive comparison to Mount Vesuvius crossed Fraser's mind at the sight of his old friend's seething rage. If he hadn't forgotten his Vegas days, Fraser shuddered to think of what else he remembered from them.

"So this guy gives the names of hotel guests to kidnappers and then he tells you two of the victims are registered here," Kowalski said. "Where's that make any sense?"

"Perhaps it's not as effective as it used to be at throwing us off the scent," Fraser suggested. "No doubt he thought pointing us directly to the Logans' room would absolve him of any suspicion."

"Yeah, but here he is steering you toward a victim and then I.D.ing another one to the bad guys. That's just dumb. That's D-U-M-dumb."

"No doubt he'll have his own version of the story to offer." Fraser quickened his pace, determined to catch up with Ray before he hurt someone, deliberately or otherwise.

Ray forgot all about the pain in his knees as he barged up the stairs to the lobby, taking the steps two at a time. The lobby was relatively quiet - one clerk at the front desk, one guest sitting cross-legged in an easy chair near the front window, his nose in a newspaper. Ray ignored both of them, storming across the lobby to the concierge desk: Fraser had begun to imagine that he could see steam issuing from Ray's ears by now.

He didn't slow his pace by half a foot even as he saw that the face behind the concierge desk was not the one he'd expected to find. There was no sign of the man who had pointed him and Fraser to room 344 the other day: a black woman had taken his place, a woman who looked up with a friendly expression that almost immediately froze into apprehension at the sight of the stone faces of the three men and the woman coming at her like the Charge of the Light Brigade.

"Where's Grenville?" Ray demanded.

"I - I'm sorry, pardon me?" the woman said, shaking her head in genuine confusion.

"Barliman Grenville. The guy who was here the other day, the guy who just incriminated himself in a kidnapping case?"

"Oh, he didn't come in today. He called the front desk and said he needed to work at his other job. I'm actually supposed to be working front desk but I'm stuck covering for him instead. This is the fourth time in the last month or so, and the second time he's done it on a Saturday. Our manager is thinking seriously about firing him."

"Yeah, well, he's welcome to can the bastard any time as far as we're concerned," Ray said sardonically.

"What's this about?" the woman asked.

"Where's his second job?" Kowalski broke in.

"Bob Scratchit Labs. It's a metal fabricating firm, so he says."

"Bob Scratchit Labs?" Francesca repeated, her face contorting in bemusement. "That place got shut down years ago!"

"Oh, they did, did they?" Ray said.

"Yeah, it only made page four of the local rag, but there's a big exposeé on the OSHA web site. They got shut down for somethin' like eighteen separate OSHA violations. They haven't been in business for at least three years!"

"And the plot thickens," Kowalski said dryly.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Fraser said, stepping over to the desk in the hopes of calming the concierge's nerves. "Do you happen to know Mr. Grenville's address?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but I can't give that information without a court order," the concierge said, trying concertedly not to stutter.

"Well, we've got the address of the lab," Francesca said. "Nobody else ever took it over. It's on the south side, right by Seventy-sixth and Ashland. It's not that far away!"

"Let's just hope Gina isn't either," Ray asserted. "C'mon." Clapping Francesca on the arm, he moved around her and barrelled back toward the parking garage.

Fraser lingered only a second to lean slightly across the desk. "Thank you very kindly for your time, ma'am," he said to the flustered concierge, dropping his eyes respectfully. No response even occurred to her as he turned away and brought up the rear: Ray had already disappeared into the stairwell, leaving a trail of determined fire behind him.

"If he called out, he probably knows we're onto him," Kowalski said, his voice shuddering with the rapid impact of his feet on the steps. "We ain't gonna get far, we try this lab place."

"Well, in that case, Stan," Fraser called from the top of the stairwell as he hurried down the stairs to rejoin his friends. "I suggest we call either Elaine or Detective Hernandez and ask them to track a cell phone number."

"Just one?" Ray tossed over his shoulder.

"306-555-7140, to be exact," Fraser recited. "It's the only Saskatchewan number on the employee phone list at the concierge desk, so if it's the only number they have for him, it must be a cell phone."

"Why bother Elaine?" Already Francesca was pulling her cell phone out of her back pocket, speed-dialing the police station. "Kaminski! Yeah. Who do you think it is? Yeah, get me a phone number, get a trace, and get on with it! I haven't got all day!"

**********

They reached the closed-down, dilapidated metalworking laboratory quietly and one at a time. Without nudging the accelerator, Ray let the Riviera coast down an alley past the lab and then parked on the other side of a low wall between the lab grounds and the commuter-rail tracks. Thus he and Fraser remained, keeping a vigilant eye on the lab for a sign of activity.

Kowalski and Francesca arrived next, hiding the GTO amidst a crowd of decrepit trucks and trailers that had been awaiting either use or disposal for years. Several more minutes brought Elaine and Hernandez onto the scene in the former's police cruiser, a hefty, late-model Ford Explorer that was her badge of office as shift supervisor. They parked on the far side of the truck and trailer boneyard, well out of sight of the lab, only able to take in the scene by radio contact with the others.

"God, I hate stakeouts," Kowalski muttered, nervously scratching the back of his head.

"Yeah, well, I hate not knowing if my daughter's okay," Francesca retorted. "You know, I hear you can get a perspective sandwich with consideration on the side for a halfway decent price at the Seven-Eleven!"

Kowalski was about to offer a scoffed response when Elaine's voice crackled through his walkie-talkie. "Kowalski, Vecchio, you guys in position?"

"Yeah, we're here," he answered.

"Standin' hard," Ray put in.

"Okay, we've got another four units in the vicinity," Elaine said. "Just waiting for a result on the phone tracker."

She glanced down at the cubbyhole in the cruiser's control panel as Hernandez's cell phone dinged with an incoming text message. She fought the urge to grab the phone herself, allowing Hernandez to check it instead.

"No dice," Hernandez announced with a doleful shake of her head. "Kaminski can't trace his signal. Either his phone's shut off or it's in airplane mode."

"If we wait much longer, we'll lose him," Elaine said tersely.

Hernandez held her breath as another message played out on the phone's screen. It was not the message she awaited, but it piqued her curiosity nevertheless. She squinted and blinked, wondering if she was reading it correctly. "That's weird," she mused.

"What?" Elaine asked.

"The name on the account isn't Barliman Grenville. It's some guy named Thaddeus Trowbridge. Maybe an alias? A really weird one?"

"If he gets any more Canadian, he could start his own curling league."

Ray sighed, staring at the closed front door to the lab. The door had once contained a glass pane, long since broken and replaced with a slice of plywood. The windows of the lab were filthy, many of them were also broken, and most of the wooden trim on the exterior of the building had rotted to the point that you couldn't tell if it had ever been painted.

"You know, Benny," Ray reflected, "Frannie asked me the other night why I never had any kids of my own. Outside of all that business with Stella, I think this is as good an answer as any."

"Anything can happen, Ray," Fraser offered. "Perhaps the cards landed a little differently in another reality, but we're only allowed to live in one reality at a time. Trying to escape from it is like departing from a marked trail in the wilderness - eventually you'll be hopelessly lost. We find ourselves playing games of chance every day, and they very rarely, if ever, turn out the way we'd hoped."

"Yeah, but it's one hell of a game when the stakes are other people's lives," Ray muttered.

Nervously and impatiently, Hernandez drummed her fingers on the cruiser's steering wheel with one hand and tapped the phone against her knee with the other. She felt the vibration a split second before the phone dinged, and she immediately lifted it, staring daggers at the new message.

"Hey! Hey, Kaminski has him!" she exclaimed. "His phone's still picking up a wi-fi signal!"

"Where? Where is he?" Elaine demanded.

"Just a minute....come on, come on...." Hernandez urged, shaking the phone as if trying to jar another text message loose from it. She stroked the screen with her thumb to prevent it from going dark, battling the temptation to bang the phone impatiently against the steering wheel.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, onto the screen flashed the message she'd been waiting for.

"He's here!" she crowed. "He's on this block!"

"All right, guys, he's on the site!" Elaine radioed. "Go get him!"

"About time!" Francesca snapped. At the pace of her exit from the GTO, Kowalski knew he'd have to stay ahead of her on the approach to the lab to prevent her from rushing into anything.

They mounted the steps to a ramshackle wooden deck and picked their way across, half expecting their feet to break clear through the decaying planks, and stood at the front door. Drawing his automatic, Kowalski reached carefully for the knob, feeling a rush of adrenaline as it turned. He flung the door wide and leapt into the lab with the weapon levelled.

Barliman Grenville was hunched over a large grey metal table, engrossed in a precision fabricating project that Kowalski couldn't identify and didn't care about. Grenville literally jumped off his stool as Kowalski bulled through the door, Francesca behind him.

 _"Turn to stone, buddy! Turn to stone!"_ Kowalski barked. Muttering an unintelligible curse, Grenville flung himself toward the floor under the cover of furnishings and scrambled desperately on all fours for the rear exit.

"Hey!" Francesca shouted, running after him. "Hey, hey! Where do you think you're going, belcher-brain?! He's not gonna kill you, _I_ am!"

Grenville was only a few paces from the other door when it suddenly crashed inward, its top hinge breaking loose from the jamb, Fraser and Ray's feet sticking through the doorway. He froze, stuck in a sickening instant of recognition as he absorbed Ray's flinty glare and eyed the small revolver in his hand. Snapping his head back and forth from one Ray to the other, he backed shakily up, searching for some cover, some escape, anything to avoid being drawn and quartered for his indiscretions.

"You're not goin' anywhere, Grennie," Ray hissed.

"Not with you, I'm not," Grenville gulped. He whirled around and jumped behind a rickety workbench barely supporting a lathe, bound and determined to keep the machine between him and the foursome staring him down. Fraser's eyes narrowed as he saw Grenville unable to tear his gaze away from Francesca: he had never met her but his expression was still one of recognition.

"You know, on second thought, you're goin' someplace," Ray snapped. "All you gotta do is make yourself a handbasket to go in." Striding up, he reached across the workbench, grabbed Grenville by the lapels and yanked him halfway across it, his lips parting in a menacing grin. "Not a smart move, pointin' us to two victims, but nobody's givin' you high marks for brains here. We got your FBI file wide open down at the station house. So we figure you know a damn sight more than you told us to begin with, and I figure you're gonna spill it all over this bench." He grabbed a fine-pointed gel pen from the workbench and held it threateningly in front of Grenville's nose. _"And_ I figure you're gonna do it by the time I count to three, or I'll turn this pen into a nose job. So unless you want a frontal lobotomy by stylus, you better get talkin', cuz. Now where the hell is my niece?"

By now Fraser and Kowalski were standing on either side of Grenville, not only cutting off any opportunity to escape but at the ready in case Ray should cross the brutality line. They already had Grenville on the verge of soiling himself, Francesca standing at Ray's side with her arms folded, waiting to see how the confrontation would play out. What had not occurred to anyone in the lab - not even Fraser - was that Ray might be bluffing. He had no idea if Grenville even _had_ an FBI file, but one worthwhile thing he'd learned from Vegas was how to scare a confession out of someone.

"Oh - okay, listen, listen," Grenville stammered. "Look, you guys - you want me to tell you anything, you gotta get me protection."

 _"You_ listen, bologna-breath, you're gonna need protection from _me_ if you don't tell me where my daughter is!" Francesca spat. 

"Oh, for...." Grenville groaned, and he sagged in Ray's grasp, closing his eyes in defeat.

"You know exactly who her daughter is, Mr. Grenville," Fraser said. "You recognise this woman as Gina Vecchio's mother. And you identified that girl to a violent criminal element some time within the last eighteen hours."

"Yeah, and you wanna know why?"

"We're all ears, buddy," Kowalski said.

"'Cause I'm as good as dead, that's why! I didn't just do this for money, I did it for my _life!_ Have you even seen the kind of hardware these guys carry?"

"Indeed we have." Fraser had sidled over to one end of the metal table where Grenville had been working. Pulling a handkerchief out of one of his belt pouches, he plucked two small brass objects from the tabletop and carried them over to the gathering. "The type of hardware that uses these for ammunition." He held up the objects for all to see, Grenville included.

"Hey, Kowalski, whaddya wanna bet you got nicked by one of those yesterday?" Ray said, grinning harshly.

"No bet, Ray," Fraser said. "These are nine-millimeter hollow-point cartridges specially designed for use in a Heckler and Koch machine pistol. As you may have surmised, Mr. Grenville, we have definitely seen what kind of hardware these men carry."

"Hell, we've been at the other end of it," Kowalski scoffed. "And look at us, still alive and kickin'. But you and I both know who's gonna be gettin' the kickin' if he don't give us some answers!"

"Don't you get it?" Grenville cried. "They were gonna kill me if I didn't give them names, what do you think they'll do if they find that I ratted 'em out?!"

"Yeah, well, if you were stupid enough to do as they told you and then tell us where to find two of the victims, you ain't scorin' any points with me, pal," Ray asserted.

"Two?" Grenville's face twisted in confusion. "What do you mean, two?"

"The Logans, you meathead!" Ray barked, shaking him by the shirt front. "Katerina and Alexandra both! Or were you so busy tryin' to cover your own ass you forgot you'd talked to Katerina at the start of the week?"

"I didn't know they'd taken her, too! All I knew about was the - Alexandra, the girl! I swear to God, I only told 'em what they wanted to know!"

"Well, then, tell us what we want to know already, bullbag," Francesca broke in. "My daughter or your ass! Dump your guts, _right now!"_

"It's _spill_ his guts, Frannie," Kowalski told her.

Were she not preoccupied with Grenville, Francesca would have smacked him upside the head hard enough to cause a concussion. "Spill, dump, leak, dribble, he'd better do it if he knows what's good for him!"

By now Grenville was so inundated with panic that he hadn't even noticed Ray easing the pen into his left nostril. Not until he felt its point brush his nose hairs did he take a deep breath, exhale it in a hiss, and go on to approach the point of hyperventilation.

"Oh - okay, okay, okay!" he panted. "She's right across the way there. That welding shop right off of Laflin? That's where they keep them until they move them. Now for the love of God, you've _got_ to get me some protection!"

"You try and skip town and God's the one you're gonna need protection from," Ray scowled. He released Grenville, pushing him roughly backward, his regress halted only by the hard metal table behind him. The foursome made for the front door and piled out of the lab, their places taken by two uniformed officers Elaine had despatched from the south alley.

The welding shop was in much the same shape as the lab: perhaps nearly a hundred years old, it had been remodelled from a freight house owned by one of the dozens of railroads with a stake planted in Chicago. Coming in from trackside, Ray quietly eased the Riviera up alongside the building, Kowalski on his bumper with the GTO, staying as close as they dared to the wall to avoid being seen easily through the windows. Most of those were also filthy and covered, but if their adversaries were indeed operating out of this OSHA inspector's nightmare, they had to have some lookout portal to the outside.

"All right, Elaine, we're at that welding shop on Laflin," Ray announced to his walkie-talkie. "Looks pretty quiet from out here. We're gonna try for a closer look."

"Don't do anything without backup," Elaine instructed. "We'll be there in a minute."

"Ray," Fraser said, narrowing his eyes at the shop.

"What is it?" Ray asked.

Instead of answering, Fraser got out of the Riviera and stooped below window level, sidling up along the brick wall. Ray joined him, Kowalski and Francesca seconds behind. Near the south end, Fraser drew himself up to a halt and cupped one hand to his ear.

"I hear voices," he murmured. "I can't make out what they're saying, but at least two of them sound rather distressed."

"Is it Gina?" Francesca gulped, pressing a hand to her chest.

"I don't know. I need to gain some altitude." Fraser looked upward at the high window and then glanced pointedly at Ray's legs. "Ah, Ray, would you mind?"

Sighing with exasperation, Ray gave him a dirty look and then genuflected. "Well, I guess after the fulcrum and the lever, it was only a matter of time till the step stool," he grumbled. He didn't see Kowalski's smug grin with his attention undivided from Fraser climbing up on his now horizontal thigh. He winced at the stress on both his knees, glowering at Fraser, honestly wondering if he meant anything more to the man than a toolbag.

Fraser gained just enough elevation to remove his Stetson and press his ear against a dusty, spiderwebbed window. He closed his eyes and shut out the rest of visual reality, submerging himself into the world of sound - including the sound of his own heartbeat accelerating as he discerned the noises inside the shop.

"I hear two other voices....and an engine idling," he announced.

"Sounds like a Chevy small-block," Kowalski said, climbing up on a milk crate to listen at another window. "Four-hundred-cube V-eight. That don't sound good, Fraser. There ain't many cars left that have those."

"Which points to...." Fraser pressed his ear to the glass again, his eyes hardening. "Oh, dear. A very unpleasant-sounding man just ordered 'either get in there or get zapped again'."

"Oh, my God, if that's...." Francesca didn't finish. Before Kowalski could stop her, she had bolted for the near end of the building, almost tripping and sprawling over a disused wooden pallet lying on the ground.

"Frannie, wait up!" Ray shouted as Fraser jumped off his leg. "Oh, _no!"_ He achingly hauled himself upright and ran after Kowalski and Fraser, both of whom were too far behind Francesca to stop her. She whipped around the corner to the front of the shop and mounted a flight of rotting wooden stairs to a transload dock built out from the wall.

"Whoever's in there, you better get your beef-bockers off my daughter before I crack your cubes!" she yelled, oblivious to both the danger inside the shop and to Fraser, Kowalski and Ray barging around ther corner behind her.

"Wait!" Fraser shouted. "Francesca, _wait!"_ He vaulted onto the dock, his hand striking out, bound and determined to intercept Francesca before she could charge into something far, far worse than she could possibly have anticipated.

 _"Watch it, Fraser, watch it!"_ Kowalski hollered from behind him. The warning penetrated Fraser's consciousness not a second too soon. He jolted to a halt and flung himself flat on the dock in the same instant as Kowalski caught up with Francesca, grabbing her by the shoulders, flinging her sideways.

The rickety wooden doors to the inside of the shop offered as much resistance as a house of cards. They disintegrated with an earsplitting crash, a cloud of wood and glass shards bursting from their frame: through the portal leapt a well-used blue El Camino with two armed men in its front seat and a thick plastic-composite cap covering its bed. It roared across the dock inches away from Fraser, careened off the edge and bounced down the ramp to the ground, the impact little deterrent to its speed as it cannoned to the nearest alley for a fast getaway.

"Elaine, we're on 'em!" Ray bellowed into his walkie-talkie as he bolted for the Riviera. "Blue El Camino, RCW one-three-nine, headed for Ashland Avenue! Try and head 'em off!" Fraser was hot on his heels as they dived into the Riviera. His face set in a determined grimace, Ray started the engine with a mighty roar, screeched into the El Camino's wake, and took up the pursuit.


	14. The Chase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Fanmix for first half: ["The Drop-Off"](http://youtu.be/ziVhIPAvpWw) by The Tragically Hip)

The El Camino nearly T-boned a taxi as it sped out of the alley and hung a sharp left, speeding southward down Ashland Avenue, inciting most of the other cars in its lane to a screeching halt. After it commenced its mad dash, traffic had barely begun to move again when all at once the Riviera burst out of the alley behind it, with Ray coldly ignoring the bawling horns and screaming drivers as he fixed on the rear of the El Camino and flattened the accelerator. Apart from the Riviera's slight edge in horsepower, his one advantage lay in the recklessness of the El Camino's driver - in his desperation to escape, the wheelman paid even less attention to the rest of the cars, forcing them to veer or jerk to a halt to avoid him. At breakneck speed he raced down the avenue and hung another sharp left onto 76th Street, appalled by the display in the rearview mirror of Ray turning the corner, pressing the advantage and gaining on him. The red light flashing vengefully from the Riviera's dashboard was enough to tell him that this was no hotshot reporter on his tail.

Fraser tightly clutched the handgrip on the Riviera's passenger door with one hand and a fistful of the passenger seat with the other. He braced himself thus as Ray swerved, not even venturing near the brake pedal, to avoid Kowalski's GTO as it barrelled out of a side street, fishtailing wildly until Kowalski straightened out his course and fastened himself to the Riviera's exhaust trail. His own dashboard light flashed furiously and he clutched the steering wheel in a death grip as he hunched over it. Beside him, Francesca clung desperately to the handgrip above the door, her eyes wide with consternation as she wondered if she would ever see Gina in one piece again.

Now the sirens pierced the spectacle. Neither Ray bothered checking his rearview, instead holding fast to the El Camino's tail: in fact Fraser was the only one inclined to spare a glance over his shoulder. Behind the GTO he could discern the blue lights of at least three cruisers flashing blindingly. Elaine's big Explorer was an imposing sight, its siren screaming, Hernandez holding its accelerator flat on the floor to close the distance with the three elderly but blazingly fast cars ahead of her. Fraser vaguely heard Elaine's voice on the radio, shouting orders to intercept and cut off the El Camino's escape, but the thunder of the Riviera's engine and the constant screeching of its tyres drowned out the radio's report.

Overtaking cars ahead and barely scraping past opposing traffic, oblivious to the blaring of the horns, the wheelman in the El Camino abruptly jerked to the left and made for a side street. Ray clung to him as if the El Camino was towing the Riviera, with the one exception that the lack of traffic on the side street enabled Ray to close with his adversary by several yards. Almost immediately he lost what distance he had gained as the El Camino burst out of the side street and skidded to avoid another patrol cruiser and an unmarked car Elaine had summoned, turning left and roaring northward up Halsted Street. The two cops narrowly avoided colliding with both the Riviera and the GTO, neither of which lost their positions as they sped up the street hot on the tail of the El Camino. The patrolmen instead fell in behind Elaine's cruiser, replacing the two that had detoured down other side streets in an effort to cut the El Camino off.

The wheelman, however, clearly cared even less for traffic patterns than he did for speed limits. He touched and then passed seventy miles per hour as he burned northward along the thoroughfare, swerving to avoid slower cars, loath to crash into one of them and lose enough momentum to allow the police to catch up. He scowled at his rearview, seeing that the Riviera still filled almost the entire field of vision, swinging from side to side as Ray tried to bulldog him into letting him catch up and pass. In response the wheelman jerked left again, bouncing over the median into the opposing lane in the hopes of shaking off his pursuers by barging into oncoming traffic. But one thing Ray had never forgotten from his patrolman days was his aggressive-driving course, and he held the accelerator flat, refusing to let the El Camino's maneuver deter him. Not to be outdriven, Kowalski pressed his back against his seat, bracing himself as the GTO thudded across the median: he barely heard Francesca's alarmed yelp or the atrocious screech of his undercarriage scraping across the concrete.

Just as uncaring of the jolt, Hernandez held course behind the pursuers and the pursued. Elaine tensely bit her lip, watching the El Camino jerk, veer, and slew its way north through the southbound lane. All too many unsuspecting motorists were driven into the sides of the road or into each other, utterly unable to comprehend what had just happened long after the trailing police cruiser had sped by. Then the El Camino skidded eastward and cut off a full gaggle of traffic from all directions as it barrelled onto 63rd Street, almost hitting one car and then another head-on, briefly losing its advantage and allowing Ray to close in again. Then the wheelman abruptly yanked his wheel to the right, avoiding another head-on collision with the two police cruisers that had detoured to block him off. The wheelman gave both patrolmen the full view of the center digit on his left hand, leaving the pavement and heading into a dirt alley underneath the elevated expressway.

Fraser squinted, recognising the ground to which the El Camino seemed to be going. He wondered briefly if there wasn't another connection to be found, but he dismissed the wonder stillborn as Ray altered his heading slightly to try and gain ground on the El Camino's passenger side. Seeing this, the wheelman first swerved right to cut Ray off, then broke left again, aiming toward a chain-link fence surrounding an aggregate plant abutting the expressway.

The El Camino crashed straight into one of the posts supporting the fence, breaking it free from the concrete. The links shattered and the El Camino struck out across open space, veering constantly from side to side in an effort to keep any of the pursuers from passing. Ray swung to one side and Kowalski to the other, both standing on their accelerators, trying to catch up and corral the El Camino before it found another avenue to escape. Hernandez filled the gap they had left, but all at once the El Camino hung a sharp left, blocking off the Riviera and skirting the outer wall of a giant furnace. Ray reacted in a flash, turning sharply in the same direction without losing acceleration and suddenly within sight of his goal. Riviera and El Camino were now roaring neck and neck.

Kowalski hung tight on the El Camino's tail to prevent it from braking hard and cutting behind the Riviera, while Francesca covered her mouth, trying to stifle a fearful scream at the spectacle. She hadn't even seen Gina, yet she clung to a horrifying conviction that her daughter was trapped in the back of a speeding car driven by two of the worst filth humanity had ever seen, while her brother fearlessly held them in a dead heat. She could not see the defiance the wheelman levelled at Fraser and Ray, nor could she see the murderous glare Ray fired back at him. All she could do was pray that Ray would somehow be able to edge ahead and cut into the El Camino's course without sending it crashing out of control and placing Gina's life at even greater risk.

All at once the wheelman swung to the left, threatening to broadside the Riviera: in response Ray swerved away to avoid, only to lose all the distance he'd gained on the El Camino as it banked sharply right and sped away from him. Snarling and cursing such as Fraser had never heard from him before, he jerked the Riviera into a right turn and nearly sent the GTO crashing sidelong into the wall of the furnace. Shouting more than snarling, Kowalski lost no time in recovery and rejoined the chase as the El Camino sped along the west side of the furnace and then broke into open space again - now heading for a loading site.

Seeing a train crew right in the middle of shoving a fresh cut of cement cars onto the loading track, the wheelman pounded his accelerator and bounced across the tracks right in front of the moving rail cars in the hopes of being permanently separated from pursuit. At once they came to an emergency stop, allowing both Rays to squeak between the rail cars and the loading chutes - though Hernandez, now with a veritable parade of patrolmen and unmarked cars blazing along behind her, was quick to recognise that the big cruiser would never fit through a gap that small. Instead she broke left and raced down the side of the train: Elaine braced herself early, prepared for the grand bounce as Hernandez four-wheeled right over the tracks ahead of the stopped locomotive.

Down a short grassy hill the El Camino sped, breaking right and striking out on a dirt road skirting the north edge of a railroad yard. Ray hung on like a leech, but Kowalski, sensing a golden opportunity, jolted the GTO in the opposite direction. Uncertain of his intentions but anxious to get the pursuit over with, Hernandez followed him away from the main event with two of the patrolmen clinging to her. The other two patrolmen and an unmarked car burned down the dirt road in the cloud of dust kicked up by both the Riviera and the El Camino, bouncing over several more railroad tracks, these ones luckily unoccupied but still sending the speeding cars nearly airborne. Finally the dirt road curved to the left, crossing over the west end of the yard: Ray pressed the advantage again, using the smaller radius on the inside of the curve to close the gap with the El Camino once more.

The wheelman, however, had not given up yet. He continued at a reckless pace across the tracks and then broke left again, whereupon the dirt road turned paved and widened into a container loading ramp. Like a shark smelling blood in the water, the wheelman plunged straight into the fray of cranes, trailer jockeys, and loaders milling about the blacktop. At first he tightly skirted the edge of a string of flatcars spotted to one side, until an unloading crane forced him to break away and attempt to broadside the Riviera again, forcing Ray to veer away from him to avert the collision. Seeing the El Camino barrelling toward a stack of containers at the middle of the platform, Ray hung back, waiting to see which side the wheelman would take: as the El Camino veered left, Ray veered right, standing on his accelerator with intent to get to the other end of the stack first. Instead they reached the end of the stack at the same time, finding themselves once again in a dead heat as they thundered eastward along the platform, dodging cranes and trailer jockeys all the way.

Again they divided to circumvent a loading crane trundling down the middle of the lane, but when they matched up again the wheelman made one more attempt to crowd the Riviera out of the picture. He almost did himself in - a trailer jockey, barrelling just as recklessly down the platform behind the crane, would have hit him head-on had the jockey not swerved at the last second to avoid him. One of the police cruisers, unprepared for the swerve, jerked into a sharp left turn and skidded sideways, crashing broadside into the jockey's tractor as El Camino and Riviera raced away, their drivers fuming at each other, both itching like mad to put an end to the chase.

The stationary flatcars spotted on both sides of the platform precluded the El Camino from escaping to either side, forcing the wheelman to rely on speed and interference from the trailer jockeys and other equipment. The only variable he couldn't count on was Ray's grim determination to nail him. Ray had not given up his bulldogging efforts, and he swung the Riviera from side to side more wildly than ever before, trying to confuse the wheelman enough to pull ahead and run him off the pavement. But eventually cutting off the Riviera was the least of the wheelman's problems. He nearly crashed into a parked office trailer at the east end of the platform, cutting right at the last moment to avoid both the trailer and a line of vehicles parked in front of it. In last-second desperation he slewed even further to cross ahead of the spotted string of container flatcars, yet still he failed to shake off Ray and the remaining patrolman as they careened into a dirt parking lot on the other side of the tracks.

It was at the other end of the lot that Kowalski chose to make his grand reappearance. Having gone the other way, around the east end of the yard, he had gambled and won, coming at the El Camino head on. Hernandez and the other two patrolmen had stuck with him, an unmarked car joining their contingent. With pursuers behind and pursuers ahead, the wheelman jerked to the right once again, exiting the parking lot and heading into a patch of dirt to one side.

He erred on the side of critical.

Almost at once the El Camino sank into the soft dirt up to its axles. Flatten the accelerator though he might, the wheelman lost all momentum in a matter of seconds as the wheels spun ineffectually into a hub-deep rut in the sand. The El Camino ground to a halt.

Not about to become similarly mired, Ray pulled the Riviera over at the edge of the parking lot, Kowalski bringing the GTO to a nose-to-nose stop. Hernandez, meanwhile, unconcerned about the Explorer's handling ability, engaged its four-wheel drive and veered directly into the dirt patch. She pulled up within feet of the driver's side of the El Camino, with Elaine flinging open the passenger door before the big cruiser had even come to a complete stop, leaping out with gun in hand.

 _"Hold it right there, dirtbag!"_ Elaine hollered, thrusting the weapon through the El Camino's open driver's window. "Mitts on the dashboard! That goes for you, too, buster!" she hollered at the thug in the passenger seat. In a matter of seconds the El Camino was surrounded, Elaine jerked open the driver's door and allowed two of the patrolmen to descend upon the wheelman, while Hernandez, the third patrolman, and Kowalski repeated the act on the passenger side. They wasted no time bodily dragging the two hoods out of the car and pushing them to their knees in the dirt.

Ray, Fraser, and Francesca, meanwhile, pounced on the El Camino's tailgate. Fraser yanked sharply on the latch, only to discover the tailgate locked tight, but the high-pitched, muffled screams emanating from beneath the plastic cap might as well have pumped liquid nitrogen into his bloodstream. A wide-eyed stare shot like a bolt of lightning between him and Ray, they leapt to either side of the El Camino and ripped the cap clean off the car's bed. Neither the wheelman nor his partner could even look, their defeat total and inescapable, as Fraser and Ray uncovered two teenage girls imprisoned face-down in a welded cage composed of rusty rebars. They were thoroughly terrified, but couldn't cover their faces very well with their hands lashed to the bars.

 _"Gina!"_ Francesca screamed, leaning fully halfway over the tailgate. She dashed forward along the passenger side, perhaps the only time she had ever been seen pushing Fraser out of her way.

 _"Mom!_ Oh, my God, Mom! Please - please help - " Those were the only words Gina could gasp out as she lifted her head, before she fell to incoherent babbling borne of paralytic fear and distress. The other girl - unrecognisable to the gaggle of cops surrounding the car - was in a similar state, so inundated with terror that her and Gina's salvation still hadn't registered with them. With the passenger-side thug under the control of two of the patrolmen, Hernandez and Kowalski marched purposefully to the back of the car and vaulted into its bed to work on freeing the second girl: Fraser had already whipped out his utility knife, whereupon he slashed Gina's bonds and then set about examining the cage. His eyes flashed as he saw that its head end was open, but pushed snugly up against the car's passenger compartment to prevent its occupants from escaping.

"Every solution has a key," he muttered to himself, passing his knife to Kowalski. Leaning through the El Camino's passenger door, he shut off its engine and yanked the keys from the ignition, pounding sand to the back of the car.

"Ray, Stan, I think what's called for here is a little brute force," he proclaimed, patting the top edge of the tailgate. Kowalski and Hernandez took the hint and quickly vaulted out of the bed as Fraser unlocked the tailgate. Dropping it open, he beckoned his two friends to his sides.

"On three, ready?" Ray said, gripping two of the lower bars. "One - "

" - two - " Kowalski picked up.

 _" - three!"_ Fraser finished. They flung every ounce of their combined muscle mass into a mighty backward heave, dragging the heavy cage out of the bed and lowering its closed end to the ground, leaving the open end resting on the tailgate. At once Fraser and Ray jumped to one side and reached for Gina's desperately flailing hands, pulling her free and promptly releasing her into Francesca's crushing, protective embrace. Hernandez and Kowalski pulled the second girl out at the same time, letting her sprawl in the El Camino's bed - she was still much too shaken to stand up. Bumps and bruises stood in ugly contrast to both their faces, Gina's nose was bleeding, and Lord alone knew what sort of injuries they'd suffered out of sight during the wild pursuit.

"Better get EMS down here, Elaine," Hernandez advised. "These kids aren't exactly the picture of health."

"I'm on it," Elaine nodded, heading for her cruiser.

Satisfied that Gina was safe amongst family, Fraser picked his way through the sand to the other side of the car where the second girl was barely sitting upright, supporting herself against the side panel. Her hair was ash-blonde and her eyes pale green, the exact opposite of Gina. By all regards, the kidnappers made no distinction whatsoever amongst their victims.

Fraser gently touched the girl's forearm, staying well clear of the rope burns on her wrist or the invisible but undoubted bruises on her upper arm. She looked him up and down, her eyes still streaming, but widening slightly: he saw an irrefutable spark of hope behind them. "You're a Mountie," she observed gratefully.

"I am," Fraser nodded. "Staff Sergeant Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I first came to Chicago...." He allowed his voice to trail off without even seeing the annoyed scowl Kowalski was levelling at him. "Well, that's not important. What's your name, young miss?"

Something in either his calm tone or his compassionate face encouraged the girl to compose herself, take a deep, shaking breath and speak more freely to him than she had to Kowalski or any of the cops. "Camryn," she said, swallowing hard. "Camryn McCreedie."

"Where are you from, Camryn?"

"Somerset, Manitoba. My grandpa, David McCreedie, he's - um - he's a retired chie - chief inspector with the Mounties. I was....I mean, we....my sister goes to Notre Dame, and we were....I didn't even - " Suddenly her throat closed up on her and she pulled away from Fraser, hugging herself and sobbing.

"Hey, Fraser!" Kowalski had been rooting about in the El Camino's passenger compartment and now withdrew and straightened up - a Sig Sauer in one hand and a machine pistol in the other. "Recognise these?"

"Uncomfortably so," Fraser nodded. Turning to Hernandez, he informed her: "The connection between the murders and the kidnappings rests with these two men. They're the same ones who attacked us at the museum yesterday afternoon."

"Well, then, no time like the present to find out just what that connection is," Hernandez concurred.

"EMS is on the way," Elaine announced, emerging from the cruiser. "Simbell, Kromer, you're in charge of these two sewer rats. Don't let 'em out of your sight until the lockup. Chirrelle, you call for a wrecker. I want this thing impounded within the hour." She started to approach Camryn, but she hesitated as she saw Ray, his face dark with rage, rounding the rear of the El Camino and marching toward the wheelman.

"Hold on a minute," Ray said. He stopped toe to toe with the wheelman, whose face was plastered with a defiant sneer. In response Ray levelled a menacing grin at him. "Bet you'll enjoy sharin' a cell with Grenville. Make sure you ask him how he threw you under the bus when he got a whiff of what I wanna do to you."

"Yeah?" The wheelman's attempt to cover his apprehension with bluster didn't get past Ray. "You got some great plans for me, huh? Do what you're gonna do and I'm gonna walk, and you know it."

Ray scoffed imperturbably. "All I know is you're probably lookin' forward to pressin' a police brutality charge, punk. Well, too damn bad for you - _I'm not a cop anymore."_

The sneer fell from the wheelman's face a fraction of a second before Ray's fist landed in his stomach with the force of a fastball. He hadn't even exhaled a grunt, much less doubled over, by the time Ray's knee smashed into his nose, the act complete with a double-fisted hammer blow to the back of his neck. Already handcuffed, the wheelman dropped to his knees, groaning loudly, and crashed onto his side with no attempt by Elaine or any of the uniformed officers to prop him up.

Along with the other officers, Fraser watched the entire spectacle stonefaced, making no move to stop Ray. No one breathed a word. No one even would breathe a word of what Ray had just done, wishing as they did that they'd had the gumption to do it themselves.

"All right, get this piece of crap out of my sight," Ray snarled at the two patrolmen flanking Elaine. "Before I _really_ open a can of whoop-ass on him." In haste, the two uniforms dragged the wheelman back to his feet and hauled him off to one of the waiting cruisers.

"Nice one, Vecchio," Kowalski muttered. "Wanna let me have a crack at him in lockup?"

"Aah, you can take the other one and make 'em both sorry," Ray muttered back, nodding at the other thug as two more uniforms herded him to a second cruiser.

His blood froze at the sound of Gina's high-pitched cry from behind him. _"Uncle Ray!"_

The urgency in her voice told Ray she was looking for more than just familial comfort. Ignoring the soft dirt invading his shoes, he dashed around the car and joined Gina and Francesca, laying his arms around both of them. Neither mother nor daughter had yet let go of the other: Gina had just regained enough composure to lift her head from Francesca's shoulder, still sobbing, but rubbing frantically at her eyes.

"What, Gina? What is it?" Ray's own voice was demanding but gentle.

"There were two others," Gina cried. "There were four of us, but they - they took two of them away already."

"How long ago?"

"I - I don't know. A couple of hours, maybe. God, I'm sorry, Uncle Ray, I shouldn't have - "

"Hey, hey, hey," Ray suddenly dropped the guns and bullets from his voice, softening his tone, stroking her mussed black hair. "It's all right, kiddo, it's okay. We got you back. The medics will be here in a few minutes. We'll let 'em check you out and then we'll talk, okay?"

"Have we got time for that?" Francesca gulped, tightening her arms around Gina. "Ray, for God's sakes, I'm not the only mom who's almost lost a daughter just this one weekend!"

"Yeah, well, don't worry about that, Frannie," Ray growled, nodding at the two goons being stuffed into separate police cruisers. "Before I'm through with 'em, those two lowlifes are gonna start talkin' long before Gina does."


	15. The Return

"Ah, Chief Inspector McCreedie?" Fraser addressed the phone receiver in his hand. "This is Staff Sergeant Fraser in Chicago, sir, returning your call. Well, sir, unfortunately Camryn doesn't seem to have eaten anything for about two days, and her companion suffered a slight concussion during a high-speed chase. They're being monitored in the outpatient clinic at St. Cecelia's Hospital. That's twenty-four-thirty West Fifty-third Street in Chicago. Yes, sir, I expect they'll be released by the end of the day. Ah, she'll be delighted to hear that. Yes, sir, I will. Thank you kindly." Nodding another thank-you to the nurse behind the counter, Fraser hung up the phone, turned and ambled down the hall to the clinic.

Gina and Camryn shared not only a room, but an increasing openness with each other and a much-needed moment of light heart when they vowed to become permanent Facebook friends as soon as Camryn was safely back home with her family. They sat upright on side-by-side beds: Camryn had already put away a tray's worth of vegetables and chicken salad, grudgingly following doctor's orders to let it settle before she could further appease her pangs. Gina had a small bandage covering an ugly purple bruise on her forehead, no doubt the culprit of her concussion, a mild one but still a concern of the medics. Francesca sat on the bed beside her - she had scarcely let Gina out of her grasp, much less her sight, since retrieving her outside the railroad yard. Ray occupied an armchair between the foot of Gina's bed and the window: as much as he'd like to be at the station knocking the perpetrators' heads together, family ever came first amongst the Vecchios.

Fraser strolled into the room, casually spinning his Stetson on his fingers. He looked with approval at the empty trays on the table between the beds - he wasn't about to start questioning the girls on empty stomachs. Regarding them both with an encouraging smile, he sat on the foot of Camryn's bed: he could still read a degree of fear in both of them, but he was confident in his ability to get through to them.

"Well, Camryn," he began, parking his hat on the bed beside him. "I was able to contact your grandfather and have him pass the word on to your parents that you're safe. They're on their way up from South Bend and should be here in a little over an hour."

"Thank you," Camryn breathed, grasping Fraser's outstretched hand. "Thank you so much."

"Glad to oblige. Meanwhile, if you're ready to talk about what happened, the more we know, the sooner we'll be able to get those other girls back."

Not unexpectedly, Camryn directed a sudden and very intense stare at the buckle of the belt around Fraser's hat. Gina immediately turned to Francesca and leaned sidelong against her, relieved to feel Francesca's comforting stroke to the back of her head.

"Aah, you don't wanna push 'em too hard, Benny," Ray advised. "You have any idea how tough this was on them? No, and neither do I and neither does anybody."

"Difficult experiences have a way of shaping lives," Fraser said, his tone growing faraway and reflective. "But it's entirely up to us what shape they take. You know, it calls to my mind the story of an Inuit tribesman named Nentbo."

"Oh, great," Ray groaned under his breath. "Here we go."

"Sounds kinda Japanese to me," Gina murmured.

"Granted, but rest assured he was a native of the far North." Fraser leaned forward, clasping his hands together in his lap. "And in the far North - as I'm sure you well know, Camryn - conditions are terribly inhospitable. When he was a very young man, Nentbo attempted to plant a tree just to see how it would grow, not understanding that the ground at that latitude is so cold and hard that it's impossible for vegetation to survive. When this was finally borne upon him, he moved further south and attempted to plant his tree again. But it still couldn't adapt to the climate, and so Nentbo had to move further south yet.

"When he finally reached a place where his tree would grow and flourish, so much time had passed that Nentbo was now over thirty years old. He was in strange surroundings, he knew no one, and nobody seemed to understand his language. But he had been away from home so long that he didn't think he could ever return there and entwine the threads of his old life with his new one. And yet, his tree was growing, strong and healthy, and Nentbo realised that in order to survive in his new world, he must open himself up to it. He spoke of his past to his new people, he embraced their differences, and he made a small handful of very close and dear friends. And all the while, his tree grew upward and outward, nourished not by soil and sunlight, but by Nentbo's own determination to survive. He opened his mind and his heart, and the world came rushing in to fill them."

Francesca smiled - Fraser hadn't seen a smile that affectionate on her since the last time they'd crossed paths in a hospital, during the Muldoon case. "Cute story, Frase," she said softly. "Even cuter 'cause it's true."

Fraser smiled back, knowing she had been able to read the subtext. Then he looked at Camryn, who was also smiling ever so slightly, but with her face suddenly much warmed by the tale. It faded somewhat as she looked down at her fingers, nervously scratching them: then she glanced over at Gina and swallowed.

"They wouldn't even let us talk to each other," she began shakily. "Even if we so much as whispered, the one guy would come marching over with a stun gun and he'd poke whoever talked. Then he'd stand there with the machine gun and stare at us, like we were pigs in a butcher shop or something."

"So you didn't catch the names of the other two?" Ray surmised.

Camryn shook her head sadly. "They took them away a couple of hours before us."

"Were there more than just those two men?" Fraser asked.

"There was one more," Gina nodded. Feeling her shudder, Francesca scooted closer to hold her. "And the others, um....it was different what they did with them...."

"It's okay, sweetie," Francesca soothed, caressing her cheek. "It's okay, just let it all out easy."

"But it's _not_ easy, Mom," Gina sniffled. "It was _inhuman!_ We were, like, not even human beings to these guys! Just parcels and packages and they didn't even mark us 'Fragile'!"

 _"Madre di Dios,_ what'd they do?" Francesca asked incredulously as she rubbed Gina's tears away.

"Footlockers," Camryn picked up, gulping. "They - they gave the other two girls the stun gun, hogtied them, locked them in footlockers and put them on one of those old box trucks - you know, the yellow ones with the markings painted over? The third guy, he....he locked the gate on the truck and then he just took them away. Gone. God, I was so scared...." She covered her face, eyes squeezed shut, unable to continue. Fraser covered her hand with his, but she immediately snatched it away. Ray, meanwhile, stood up and fumed, mumbling some remarks under his breath that were unfit for adolescent ears.

"Did you hear anything they said to each other?" Fraser asked.

Camryn glanced briefly at him, but then she shut her eyes tightly again, trying to stifle a sob that escaped nonetheless. She had not the benefit of her mother's comfort at her side: Gina, so encouraged, willed herself to speak, though her voice still trembled.

"The one driving the truck wanted to make sure those girls wouldn't make any trouble. And the skinny guy with the beard - he said they'd be in Toledo before they knew what hit them."

"Toledo?" Francesca repeated.

"Ohio or Spain?" Ray grated.

"Didn't say," Gina gulped.

"Well, at least we know they're headed east. Just not how far."

"I'm not too sure, Uncle Ray. They said to the one in the truck, see you at....Col-something. Colrain, maybe."

"Colton, or....or Colburn," Camryn choked out, sniffling loudly.

"Did you happen to notice the licence plate number on the truck?" Fraser asked, passing Camryn a spare handkerchief from one of his belt pouches.

"No, the plate looked like it was half burned," Gina shook her head. "But when they put the other two girls on the truck, they put a bunch of other stuff on it as well, like pieces of metal and tools and stuff. Most of what wasn't nailed down in the shop, they took it with them."

"Time to get rid of the evidence," Ray muttered.

"What do you mean?" Francesca asked.

"This was to be their last move," Fraser said. "They cleaned out all evidence of their presence in that welding shop, which means that they were getting ready to take their heinous business to the next level. Did they give you any idea where they planned to take you?"

"No," Camryn swallowed, holding the handkerchief constantly over her nose. "All they said to us right after the truck drove away was, 'Better think about going potty. You've got a hell of a long trip ahead of you.'"

A meaningful nod from Ray told Fraser that they had pushed quite far enough. Together they repaired to the hallway, Ray closing the door to allow the girls to relax and not overhear a discussion best kept out of their earshot.

"Great, so no plate number, no DOT marks and no evidence left to snag," he sighed. "Whole lot of nothing, that's all we got."

"Quite the contrary, Ray, we have two victims recovered and in safe haven," Fraser dissented. "We also know that the perpetrators are packing up and moving out of Chicago on what would seem to be an extended journey to the east. Whether their path leads to Toledo or somewhere further on, perhaps our assassins-turned-kidnappers will provide us with enough of a head start to reach the end first. Shall we monitor some progress?"

"Thought you'd never ask." Ray wasn't smiling.

**********

Fraser and Ray were back at District 27 by 4:30 that afternoon, finding the two kidnappers none too gently dumped in separate holding cells, and Kowalski, Hernandez, and Elaine collating the evidence so far. Their interview fuel, burning hot and fast, ranged from the composite sketches drawn by Edgar the musician in painstaking artist's detail to the weapons they'd recovered from the getaway car and the machine-gun shells they'd discovered at the metalworking lab. By the time Fraser and Ray arrived, they were ready to fire up the grill.

Leaving the interrogations in the purview of his friends, Fraser removed to the squad room. He was tempted to sneak down a side corridor to listen in on the interrogations, but he wasn't sure he wanted to hear what was going on in either of those rooms. In the squad room, he found Lerschen sitting in a chair near the marker board, which hadn't been touched since they'd all gone charging out of the precinct. Lerschen still held the styrofoam coffee cup in both hands - God only knew how many times he'd refilled and emptied it down his gullet.

"Ah, Mr. Lerschen," Fraser said, drawing to a stop in front of him. "I believe you'll find it safe to step out on the street again. We have our assailants in custody."

"So I've been told," Lerschen sighed. "That's a bloody relief. And what about the, uh...."

"A partial victory to be sure, but fortunately not a Pyrrhic one, at least not yet. It would seem, however, that those gunmen were affiliated with the kidnappers."

"So they probably killed Erich, they tried to kill me, and they apparently think nothing of committing federal crimes. Not the cosiest thought of the day." Lerschen stood up, his eyebrows playing lacrosse on his forehead as he studied the notes on the marker board for perhaps the hundredth time. "You know, I've been banging my head against this thing ever since you left."

Fraser eyed his head critically. "You don't appear to have suffered any bruising."

"No, no, it's just an expression. You know how Richard Castle finds his inspiration by consulting with the NYPD? Offering them a writer's perspective on how the criminal mind works?" Fraser nodded and Lerschen continued: "I've been trying to pull off the same thing here, think the way he thinks. Trouble is, I write military history, not crime fiction."

"Perhaps it's worth thinking about nonetheless," Fraser mused. "Mr. Wichmann knew somebody was operating to ill-conceived purposes on the St. Lawrence River. He wanted to let you in on it, perhaps to warn you about the killers, but he never got a chance to tell you. They only killed him to silence him. They made a similar attempt on your life, so they obviously had reason to suspect you were wise to their machinations as well."

"So...." Lerschen narrowed his eyes sceptically, beginning to understand Kowalski's point of view. "What you're saying is, I've been walking around with a target on my back because I _might_ know something, and I'm not even aware of it? That's an awfully tough piece of beef to chew on. I mean, if it hadn't been for you guys yesterday, I might have died without knowing why. Or seeing my family again, for that matter. Hell of a way to go."

"Yes, I quite agree. But assuming Ray and, er, Ray are unable to elicit a confession from those two men, I think we've found all the answers we're going to find in Chicago. Perhaps it's time we shift our focus."

"To where?"

"Well, for now, to the morgue. I have a mind to study the water samples from both Mr. Wichmann and Ms. Merino to determine just what body or bodies of water they were drowned in."

*****

Elaine leaned against a vertical drainage pipe beside one wall of the interrogation room. From there she eyeballed the wheelman, who had scarcely said two words, even in request of a lawyer, since being plunked down in the chair to one side of the table with his hands still cuffed behind him. Dried blood still marred his upper lip from Ray's attack. He barely looked at Elaine, but when he did, she could see an ever so faint glimmer of despair behind that tough exterior.

"Even if there was a lawyer anywhere in Chicago who was desperate enough to defend a sack of slime like you," she said quietly, "what good do you think it's gonna do? We caught you cold with two kids in the back of your car and two attempted-murder weapons in the front of it. We've got not one, but two witnesses to you abducting one of those girls. And reckless endangerment? That's just the cherry on top of the icing on the cake. Better start talking before you choke on it, mister."

"What's to talk about?" the wheelman shrugged. "You said it yourself, you caught me cold."

"Not as cold as you're gonna be if you don't speak up." Elaine moved forward, stood on the other side of the table and pushed the empty chair out of her way, staring daggers at him. "You can do it right here and right now. Or I can just toss you back out on the street and watch while whoever it is you're working for guns you down in a drive-by so you'll never speak again."

"You don't seriously think I'm fallin' for that," the wheelman snorted.

"Guess it depends on who you're working for, doesn't it?" Elaine said, leaning on the table, fists balled. "But why wouldn't it surprise me if he did hunt you down and squash you like the bug you are? I'll nail him one way or another. But there's only one way I can do it and keep you alive."

"S'pose I don't know who it is? That I just do what the middleman tells me to, and his orders come from on high? Say you're right and I am workin' for a guy who'll kill me just to shut me up. You think I wanna know who it is? I don't think so."

"Who are you working _with,_ then?" Elaine demanded, striding around the table toward him. She leaned next to him, close enough for him to feel her breath on his temple. "Murder, attempted murder, multiple kidnapping? There's no way in hell you could have pulled all of this off by yourself. Who else is in on it? Why don't you start with this middleman of yours."

"I'll tell you what." Smirking, the wheelman stared sidelong at her. "Maybe you can put me a little more to my ease if you bring in that partner of yours. Give me somethin' nice to look at, at least."

Elaine caught herself short of scoffing at the man's shameless objectifying. She glanced at the two-way mirror across the room and then looked back at him, not letting him see the inspiration that had just struck her. With a slight shrug she straightened up and crossed the room. "Okay," she said casually. "If it makes you more comfortable, why not?" She knocked on the mirror, half-turned and ambled over to the door, watching the wheelman all the while. His smirk had turned to an outright leer in his anticipation of a long but sweet interview.

Elaine took up the smirk, not once taking her eyes from the wheelman as she opened the door: with grim satisfaction she watched the leer freeze solid on his face and then vanish as Ray entered the room, scowling so fiercely at him that his hardened hide suddenly burned away in the fires of despair.

"Hey, now, wait a second," he protested. "This wasn't - "

"Enjoy it, buster," Elaine said without a hint of guile. "I know he will." And then she exited the room, locking the door behind her.

Ray advanced, keeping a sharp eye out for sweat forming on the wheelman's forehead. "You know what's funny about good cop, bad cop?" he began. "Even in my day, we never played it in that order. You think she was the bad cop? You think this was rough play?" He tapped the wheelman's nose a little harder than necessary, noticing the wince. Then he leaned over, inches from the side of his adversary's face. "You ain't seen nothin' yet, pal."

He lingered there just long enough to spot a trickle of sweat dribbling from the wheelman's hairline down his temple. Straightening up, Ray continued to circle the table. "An old boss of mine used to say interrogation was a contact sport. But even in those kinda sports, you gotta learn to play by the rules. Know where you learn not to play by 'em? When you spend a year undercover with the Mafia. When you find out a guy who was smugglin' livestock through your district got pulled over for a busted brake light and blurted out a spontaneous confession. When you watch a couple of your enforcers put sugar in his gas tank, wait for his car to die, drag him down to the mechanical room in the hotel basement and tie him to the steam pipes." He paused on the other side of the table. Then he picked up the vacant chair and violently hurled it across to one side, allowing it to strike a glancing blow off the tabletop and spin away to a corner of the room. Taking note that the wheelman was sufficiently startled, he slapped both hands on the tabletop and leaned into his face again. "When you can smell his skin burning and he starts beggin' for his life, but they ain't even held his head over a pressure relief valve and steam-blasted his face yet. You know what happens to a guy's lungs when you sock him in the gut and he inhales steam that hot? Well, do ya?"

"Look, man, I - " the wheelman started, but Ray flared with fury, grabbed him by his jacket lapels, jerked him almost nose to nose and then shoved him roughly backward. Yelping in surprise, the wheelman fell flat on the back of his chair, his head striking the floor like a coconut falling from a tree.

"No, _you_ look, you punk!" Ray bellowed. He rapidly rounded the table again and planted one foot firmly on the man's chest. "That's my baby sister's kid you laid your filthy paws on! You think you're gonna be lucky enough to get blown away in a drive-by? You picked the wrong family to mess with! Either you grow a brain stem and tell me who you're workin' for, or you got a one-way ticket to the boiler room and you can tell me yourself what superheated steam feels like on the inside! Now you lie there and you think about that!"

Stepping deliberately on the wheelman's chest, Ray crossed over him and headed for the door. Elaine hastened to let him out, whereupon they regrouped in the observation room, watching the wheelman from the other side of the two-way.

"Wrong family," Elaine said. "Nice touch."

"How's Kowalski doing?" Ray asked.

"He and Mona are still going at it with the other guy. I'll give him another five minutes and then you can both go in there and see if you got through to this bastard."

"Check his face. We're halfway there by the look of him."

"Well, you'd better make up the distance while you can. FBI isn't too happy that we beat them to two of their prime suspects. Both of these clowns have outstanding warrants for cross-border smuggling and receiving stolen goods. We can probably plan on a visitation from the Feds any minute now."

"Greeeeeat," Ray sighed.

"Assuming your steam-cleaning bluff doesn't work," Elaine hazarded, "you have any ideas what will?"

"Yeah, as long as it's still playable," Ray said, a cold smile beginning to play on his face. "I think it's time we roll out the heavy artillery."

*****

Kowalski was on the verge of jumping on the table and literally kicking the second thug in the head. He and Hernandez had been breathing down both sides of the guy's neck for over an hour, but he just maintained that smug, contemptuous grin as if he had a straight flush hidden in his back pocket. Kowalski had almost run out of ammunition fighting this man at the museum, but he promised himself not to let it get so low a second time.

"You ever stick your hand in an electrical socket when you was just a small-fry?" he asked. No answer came, and Kowalski leaned on the table, staring the thug hard in the eye. "I did one time. Almost burnt the house down. Wasn't for that, my old man never woulda found the spliced wires in the cellar."

"Look at you, Daddy's little hero," the thug smirked.

 _"Wake up!"_ Kowalski shouted. He whipped a police-issue yellow stun gun out of his jacket pocket and slammed it on top of the table. "You never knew how it felt before, well, how'd ya like to find out now? 'Cause I'll tell ya right now, buddy, I bet this sucker feels even worse!"

"What are you buggin' me with it for? I'm just an innocent bystander."

"Innocent bystander," Kowalski scoffed. "C'mon, Travolta, there's no such thing! Everybody's guilty of somethin'!"

"Especially when they get caught with a car full of guns and kidnapping victims," Hernandez came in, bracing one foot on the side of the thug's chair. "So as long as we're talking about innocent bystanders, how about the one you tried to take out at the museum yesterday? You know, I hate to tell you this, but that Sig Sauer you had on you, it's got a hell of a history. We only read the latest chapter of it when we cleaned up all its bullets from the submarine exhibit. Maybe if you make it easy on yourself and tell us the rest, you won't have to write it out to kill time in solitary."

Still the thug didn't say a word - but even if he'd had anything to say, he would have lost his window when the loud thud on the other side of the wall distracted him. Hernandez and Kowalski both glanced up, neither of them fully expecting the crash or the menacing thunder of Ray's voice telling the wheelman exactly where he had gone wrong. Yet Hernandez seized on it, shoving the thug's chair roughly to one side with her braced foot. He didn't tip over, but he skewed around far enough to eye the spot on the other side of the wall from his erstwhile partner, whose situation he had no desire to share.

"Hear that?" Hernandez said, jerking her head toward the wall. "Your cohort over there just went down. Literally and figuratively."

"Yeah, that's like, that's Cop Land Two, the Wrath of Ray bein' filmed over there," Kowalski said, leaning over the thug's shoulder. "Guess what? We wrote a supporting role just for you."

"So are you gonna be next?" Again Hernandez leaned at him, placing her foot on his chair dangerously close to his crotch. "Or are you gonna start narrating?"

"Hell, we're ready to start shootin' already," Kowalski snorted. "We already got us a background extra. I'm gonna go downstairs and get 'im." He slapped the back of his hand against the thug's arm, turned away and made off for the door.

"You have until he comes back to open your mouth," Hernandez advised the thug. "Then you'll be going a round with Ray One-point-oh in there. _Entiendes?"_

Predictably, he answered her only with stony silence. She didn't break her withering stare at him until she, too, had backed a pace and headed to the door, slamming and locking it as she withdrew.

She followed Kowalski down the hall to the observation room where Ray and Elaine had just reconvened. The view through the two-way of the wheelman lying on his back, his hands still cuffed behind the chair, brought to both of them a perverse sort of satisfaction, a hope that perhaps he had begun to understand what Gina and Camryn had been through at his hands.

"Why so serious, Kowalski?" Ray said with a hard edge of sarcasm in his voice. "Look at all the progress we've made with these guys. He's cowerin' in fear for his life in there."

"Yeah, so how's your day goin'?" Kowalski sniped back.

"Don't tell me you're that far out of practise," Elaine said wryly.

"Well, there sure ain't no playin' good cop, bad cop with these suckers," Kowalski said. "They've played it enough to make a, like a National Good-Cop-Bad-Cop League sport out of it."

"Even 'bad cop, hot cop' doesn't seem to be working too well," Hernandez admitted. "Think maybe there's a way we can spice them up? Hit them from an angle they don't expect?"

At once the two Rays began to talk simultaneously, Kowalski suggesting that they trot out a third witness and Vecchio insisting that his threats would break the wheelman's back in short order. Just as quickly they paused, staring at each other, then resumed gabbering unintelligibly until Elaine moved over and gently pushed them apart.

"Okay, you guys need to play nice and take turns," she told them. Turning to Ray, she ordered: "You, speak."

"Woof," Ray said sardonically. "Well, my niece heard 'em say something about Toledo, somethin' else about Colhard or Colbert or Coleporter. So this guy was drivin' the getaway car, I figure he's gotta know where they were headed. We'll really make him piss his pants if we both go in there and start haulin' him downstairs."

"You sure threw a good enough scare into him. How about you?" Elaine said to Kowalski.

"Well, if we drag Grenville up in front of 'em, it's like, uh, tossin' Jiffy Pop into a volcano," Kowalski said. "All's we gotta do is sit back and enjoy the fireworks."

"Oh, you thought of that, too, huh?" Ray said in rhetorical tones.

"Betcha I thought of it first. It'd make a good, uh, whaddyacallit, y'know, a key stoner."

"You mean a key stressor?" Hernandez smirked.

"Yeah, somethin' like that."

"Okay, Mona, go get him," Elaine said. "And you guys, remember what I said about taking turns."

*****

There had been a time when Fraser enjoyed visiting the morgue. Cooler by several degrees than the rest of the precinct, the temperature felt a little more like home. Alas, there was no more dueting with Mort Gustafson - the good doctor had been gone for several years. Between that and his own creeping age, Fraser no longer took much enjoyment from a walk down to the morgue. It was just there, and it served little other purpose than to house corpses and evidence. The latter had his interest, shelves of it, displaying the bodies' personal effects and offering clues to their origins, possibilities as to the cause of death. In the open cardboard boxes marked with the names of the two murder victims in question, Fraser found what he was looking for.

Erich Wichmann lay on the exam table, his torso sewn back together, a sheet covering all but his head and shoulders. The seams of his ancient face had deepened since his death - the coroner had gotten to him just in time. Several gurneys bearing other stiffs were spotted around the room, examinations complete and the bodies awaiting their last journey to interment.

Somehow, Fraser found the morgue even chillier than usual. It was not a decrease in air temperature, certainly nothing so severe as the meat locker he and Ray had endured on the wild-horse case. The chill reached far past his skin and clothes, dug all the way into his bone marrow. It was the kind of chill you would expect to feel deep in a crypt in the middle of Siberia in the wintertime. Trying not to shiver, Fraser continued his investigation.

He had made a point of carrying litmus paper in his tunic pocket of late, variously treated to turn different colours when contacted by different liquids. Such liquids as sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide were their own dead giveaway as they would just dissolve the litmus paper on contact, but no such thing came of the liquid samples Fraser examined. Neither one yielded the possibility of chlorine. The Wichmann sample offered a very slight salinity level - almost untraceable - but the St. Lawrence River emerged in Fraser's mind as the preeminent source of salt water mixed with fresh water.

The Merino sample offered no such thing, much to his confusion. Next step: spectral analysis.

A tiny drop of each sample was enough. This time Fraser searched not only for salt water, but for other elements besides hydrogen, oxygen and sodium. He hit pay dirt, finding a virtual rainbow of chemicals one would expect to find in a waterway heavily plied by commercial shipping. Merino might have been inundated further upriver, where the water was fresh, but not much further than where Wichmann had expired. The repository of all answers could be nowhere else but on the St. Lawrence.

But how on God's green earth did she fit into all this?

Fraser straightened up from the analyser, rubbing his back. The ancient bullet wound had picked a most inopportune moment to remind him of its presence. As he sighed and dug his thumbs into his back muscle, he froze - not from the air temperature, but from surprise.  
He could have sworn he heard someone whispering to him.

He looked around the morgue, searching for a sign of another person in the room. No one else was present, and thankfully, none of the bodies pushed aside their covers and arose. Yet he could almost feel his teeth vibrating at the sound of this and other whispers, nearly inaudible. He couldn't for the life of him make out what any of them were saying, but still he knew he could hear them.

Finally as he faced the spectroanalyser again, he drew himself up rigidly straight. One whisper had begun to stand out from the others. No longer a whisper at all, in fact - but a voice, a clear and firm and disturbingly familiar voice, so quiet that it sounded as if it was coming from halfway round the world.

_This is one shadow you don't dare pursue, son. Even if you catch it, it'll devour you like a pack of ravenous wolves._

"Dad...."

The whisper escaped almost imperceptibly from Fraser's throat. Looking up from the spectroanalyser, he caught his breath as he saw the faint, shadowy reflection in the stainless-steel cabinet adhering to the wall. A dark reflection with a fuzzed tip - unmistakable as a fur hat.

Fraser spun around, aware in the darkest, dustiest back corner of his mind that he had no idea what to say to his father's sudden reappearance. Yet he froze again, his heart stopping, as he discovered that the reflection had no source. His father was not in the room: he was buried in an RCMP cemetery thousands of miles away, his spirit further away yet, forever united with Fraser's mother.

Instead, at the foot of a gurney on the other side of the morgue, sat another individual Fraser had never expected to see again, staring at him curiously.

 _"Dief?"_ Fraser whispered. "Dief, how can you...."

The opaque lupine ghost made no answer. As Fraser slowly stepped closer, his heart began to pump again - wildly - and his eyes widened in consternation as he saw every wound Diefenbaker had ever suffered, from bullet to leg fracture to broken toe. They all appeared unhealed and as visible as the times they'd been inflicted. Even a few of the subdermal lumps from Diefenbaker's last days were visible hanging from his neck and belly.

Fraser's knees felt watery, his breath as short as when he'd first spotted Ray's car the other day. Ray, at least, had turned out to be real, but in less than the past minute Fraser had sworn to hear his father's voice and now saw the apparition of his beloved wolf sitting before him. He struck a hand out to the examining table for support, waiting for Diefenbaker to speak, whether in lupine or human speech.

But Diefenbaker still made no sound. He stared at Fraser with an empathetic sort of sadness in his large dark eyes. Then he blinked and turned his head upward, indicating the sheet covering the cadaver on the gurney.

Trembling, Fraser moved forward. Careful not to prod Diefenbaker with his toe - regardless of whether or not it would simply pass through him - he accosted the gurney and reached for the sheet with a shaking hand. Diefenbaker's appearance filled him with foreboding, but he had to chase down an explanation for the unnatural things he was seeing and hearing, just as he'd had to run down Ray's car after seeing it only in a brief flash. Screwing his eyes shut, he peeled the sheet back several inches before opening them again.

Gasping in horror and disbelief, he stumbled backward and barely caught himself on the examination table. His head swam, and he felt as if someone had reached down his throat and pounded his stomach flat down to his tailbone. Diefenbaker still sat there, unmoving in the middle of the spinning room, until he vanished along with everything else as Fraser crumpled to the floor and blacked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hides from the otter deluge*


	16. Moving On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAAARGH!!! So sorry it's been so long since the last update, folks - FRTDNEATJ, been dealing with real life rather more than I want to confess. I do hope you're not disappointed with this chapter in light of how long it's been in coming. Am cautiously optimistic, though, that we are now returning to our regularly scheduled posties.

At first opening of the door, Hernandez didn't enter - she stood leaning against the doorjamb, eyeing her quarry warily like a duck hunter hiding in a blind. The thug stared back without a word, engaging her in a silent blink-down. His own attitude was that of a moose facing off against the same duck hunter.

Finally Hernandez uncrossed her arms and set foot into the room. "Well, how about it?" she asked. "Truth or dare? Knife or gunfight? Cake or death?"

"Whaddya want me to say?" the thug scoffed. "You don't really expect me to say 'cake', do you?"

Pretending to smile, Hernandez approached him with slow, leisurely steps, watching his every facial tic for his reaction. "Well, it's just too bad for you the state of Illinois doesn't have a cake penalty," she said with a casual shrug. Then she watched, thoroughly satisfied, as Elaine shoved Grenville through the door behind her and the thug's composure washed completely away.

 _"Grenville!"_ he shouted.

 _"Braits!"_ Grenville yelped at the same time. Spinning toward Elaine, he started to stumble sideways, straining against his handcuffs. "You call this protection?!" he screamed.

"What did you expect, an industrial-sized condom?" Elaine said sardonically.

"You bottom-feeding little rat!" Braits snarled, struggling to get up. At once Hernandez was on him, roughly shoving him back into the chair as Elaine caught Grenville's arm in a death grip.

"And who the hell do you think I've been ratting for for two freakin' months?! Did it ever occur to you or Herada that maybe we wouldn't get away with it?!" Grenville almost broke Elaine's grip, trying as he might to wrench away from her into the nearest corner.

"Well, if you hadn't spilled your guts, we'd be at the base long before now and maybe we _would_ have got away with it!" Braits bellowed.

At the word _base,_ Hernandez and Elaine immediately shot daggerlike stares at each other. The use of Grenville as a key stressor had worked beautifully. Yet still, having long ago learned an important lesson about blowing an asset, they allowed the two bad guys to continue arguing.

"Oh, sure, because it was my idea all along!" Grenville's voice cracked with panic. "Damn you, Braits, who else do you gotta drag to the bottom of the lake with you? 'Cause don't think that's - "

"Well, just you hope and pray we ain't cellmates for the rest of your ratty little life!" Braits snarled. "'Cause when Herada and I don't show up at the base, you're dead meat the next foot you set out on the sidewalk, you weasel!"

He struggled to get up again, but Hernandez pushed him back down. Elaine, deciding that she'd heard enough, jerked her head toward the door: Grenville and Braits continued to shout comebacks and insults at each other as the two detectives bodily dragged Grenville out of the interrogation room and halfway down the hall.

"All about that base, aren't ya?" Hernandez said.

"I don't know anything, lady," Grenville panted.

"Well, then, you're in a class by yourself, mister," Elaine told him.

"Yeah, sitting in the corner with the pointy hat on," Hernandez chortled.

 

"All right, Buster Keaton, time's up," Ray declared as he burst into the second interview room, Kowalski close on his heel. "What's it gonna be? You gonna talk like a man or a steam engine? Last chance, Larry!" They accosted the wheelman from either side, careful to keep from him that they had learned his real name from Grenville and Braits. Herada had been lying flat on his back for some minutes now, recomposing himself.

"Damn cops don't scare me," Herada snorted. "You said yourself you ain't even - "

Kowalski cut him off with a swift kick in the side of the head. "Too late, tough guy!" he barked. Together he and Ray dragged Herada to his feet, herding him toward the door. "You already blew it at the museum where 'damn cops' took down your buddy Fostoria! So now that gives you three seconds to grow a pair before you lose the whole package!"

"You fellas want a package?"

Ray stopped short at the sound of the now too-familiar voice coming from the doorway. His already crushing grip on Herada's arm tightened, jolting him to a stop and Kowalski a poor second afterward. Kowalski later swore he could see heat waves radiating from Ray's head as Frank Zuko appeared on the threshold.

"Well, here's a wrap-up," Zuko said. "This douche nozzle is a waste of your time. He's useless outside of city limits."

"What's it to you?" Ray snapped.

"Oh, c'mon, Vecchio. You're the one who came around lookin' to pump me for information in the first place. Now you want it or not?"

For several tense seconds Ray glared at him through narrow eyes. Then he glanced to his side. Herada wore a look of confusion, knowing nothing of the newcomer or his purpose. Kowalski looked similar - he'd never met Zuko and only knew of the man's history what Fraser had told him: a lucky stroke indeed, as encountering Zuko during his impersonation days would have given the game dead away.

"All right, Frankie, start talkin'," Ray said finally.

Without smiling, Zuko closed the door. "Ferdinand Gamellan is back in the fencing business. After I lost out on that livestock bid, he laid low for a while. But then another buyer stepped up to the plate a few years back when the economy tanked. Shifted from imports to exports and took advantage of the rail traffic jam along the lake shores to start sneaking his own shipments through."

"And you know this because....?"

"Because word gets out when a badass like Brad Fostoria gets taken down. You don't call in guns that big unless you really want someone dead. You know that, don't you?" Here Zuko nodded at a still-confused Herada.

"Get to the point, Frankie," Ray growled. "Who wants a nice quiet New England author out of the way that bad?"

Zuko barely stifled a snicker. "You're sailing down the wrong river, Ray. I don't know who's on the receiving end. But we all know that this insect knows where the trail starts." Eyeing Herada, Zuko put to him: "Who do you want to talk to, them or me?"

"Okay, look, Police Work One-Oh-One," Kowalski cut in. "Here's a crash course. No steppin' on toes. Wish somebody'd tell that to the FBI. But we keep hearin' 'base', somethin' about a base from him and his cahooter. Unless it's a dead and dried-up baseball park...."

Zuko nodded slowly, chewing his lip: his expression had changed from cold impassivity to enlightenment. "Base, huh?" he repeated. Seeing Herada's face stretch in a grimace, complete with tightened teeth, he raised his eyebrows at Ray. "There's your trailhead, Ray. Cullerton Air Force Base. Remember it?"

"Yeah," Kowalski spoke up. "Yeah, it got, uh, shut down back in ninety-two after the Cold War blew over. It's down there outside of Kankakee. I had an old boss said her husband was a colonel in the Air Force and he was a bigshot in the nuke program there."

"Perfect hiding place for contraband," Zuko said. "Especially livestock. The base is a ghost town now because of the nuclear waste hazard. Nobody goes there who doesn't have something to hide from the world. That's where Gamellan used to stash his loot and I'll lay you eight to five he's still doing it. That's where you guys ought to start."

"Okay," Ray muttered. "Say we should ought to start there. Gimme one good reason why I ought to believe you in the first place."

"Call it even, Ray."

"Even for what?"

"You know damn well for what." Zuko glanced behind him at the closed door, half hoping to see Francesca at the window, not knowing that she was still at the hospital with the girls.

"We're never gonna be even for Irene," he said finally. "But you're the one who told me you can remember things that happened twenty years ago. I gave you my word and kept it, and you kept yours. Take it and give thanks."

"You're takin' one hell of a chance," Kowalski said. "Whoever was dirty enough to call in a guy like Fostoria, and, uh, here you are snitchin' on him...."

"Don't worry about me, pal. I should have left town long ago, but one way or another, my time's come."

With that, Zuko turned around and exited the interview room, vanishing from Ray's sight for the last time.

"So you gonna let me go now, or what?" Herada grunted.

"Yeah, we'll let you go to hell for sure," Ray snapped back as he and Kowalski dragged Herada bodily back to his chair. "You were in on the hit with Fostoria, so you gotta know who called him in." Dumping Herada back on his posterior, he leaned halfway over him. "So no more B.S., no more Tough Mudder, no more Navy SEAL wannabe. What's the deal, pal?"

"That's where you're wrong," Herada scoffed. "I wasn't never in the Navy."

"Oh, so you _don't_ know what steam pipes feel like," Kowalski spat.

"And I don't know who called for Fostoria, either," Herada snapped back. "All's I know is, Braits and I got told to meet him at the museum to kill the writer. Gamellan sent us. Don't ask me who sent him."

"We don't gotta," Kowalski said. "We know where the trail starts now, so it don't matter. You can sit here till an archaeology team digs this place up for all we care. Don't worry, we'll make sure you're nice 'n' uncomfortable till then." As one, he and Ray turned away from Herada and headed back for the corridor, fully prepared to ignore any last-second pleas, protests, or insults he might spit at their backs: but then there were none.

"He's fibbin'," Kowalski muttered. "He knows who made the call, or else, uh, he wouldn't have stuck around after Fostoria went down."

"Yeah, well, now that we know where to start, it's not like he's got any incentive left to talk," Ray sighed. "Okay, so Cullerton is our jumping-off point. Air National Guard still operates fuel tankers out of there, don't they?"

"Nah, they pulled outa there like eight or nine years ago," Kowalski said. "Budget cuts just like everybody else, at least that's the story from up there on the throne. The place is totally abandoned now. But don't tell me you believe that Frankie guy. I heard from Fraser he was, uh, he was one of the biggest mob guys this side of the Pecos River."

 _"Both_ sides," Ray corrected. "God knows I don't wanna believe him, but we got about as much choice as time. C'mon, let's go find out what Elaine scared up."

In an intersecting corridor pointing toward the squad room, they met Fraser on his way back up from the morgue. His steps were slow, his eyes troubled and his face ashen. Kowalski imagined for a brief moment that Fraser's hair had faded from silver to solid white.

"Hey, Fraser, you all right?" he questioned.

"Yes, Stan, I'm quite well," Fraser said, less than convincingly.

"You don't look it. You look more, er, more like you seen a ghost."

"Just wait till he starts talkin' to himself," Ray said wryly. "Still part and parcel of the whole Mountie Mystique, is it?"

"Perish the thought, Ray." Fraser sounded downright offended as they proceeded to the squad room.

"Ah, well, you know the saying - poltergeists are the spice of life," Kowalski said.

"Isn't that variety?"

"Yeah, well, it's sorta the same thing."

Upon entry to the squad room from the side door, they came upon Elaine, Hernandez, and Lerschen gathered at the marker board. Smiling at them, Elaine spoke first: "Well, you guys should have just seen the look on Braits's mug when we shoved Grenville up against him."

"Yeah, well, you shoulda seen Vecchio here when he got some unexpected help," Kowalski replied.

"Oh?" Elaine raised a curious eyebrow.

"Cullerton Air Force Base," Ray said without elaborating. "That's where those clowns were headed. Just the start of a way too long vacation for a lot of innocent kids."

"Yeah, well....yeah, that makes perfect sense," Hernandez said, spreading one hand in epiphany. "There's an intermodal rail terminal abutting the base. Some of Chicago's most paranoid swear up and down that the government has been quietly sneaking inert nuclear material out of the base by rail."

"Except it's not nuclear material at all," Fraser said. "It's a different kind of contraband entirely, and for once there's no government involvement."

"Bet there will be now if we don't get down there first," Kowalski exhorted. "So, uh, I says what're we waitin' for? C'mon, let's haul ass down there and derail 'em. Pitter-patter, let's get at 'er." At once he set off at a brisk trot for the side door again, unaware that none of the others had so much as lurched to follow him.

"Ummm, I don't think that's such a wise idea," Fraser said. "We're in a much better position to - _Ray! Ray! Ray! Ray! Ray!"_ he hollered in time with Kowalski's footsteps.

 _"What?"_ Kowalski demanded, whirling on him.

"The perpetrators will expect a police action now that we've arrested two of their operators," Fraser submitted. "Going in there now will put the victims' lives at grievous risk. It's better that we head them off where they don't expect us, at their destination."

"Wherever in the pie hole of hell _that_ is."

"Well," Lerschen said to Fraser, "did you find anything interesting in the morgue?"

Nobody missed Fraser's sharp, deep inhalation or his concentrated stare at the floor. Several seconds of this delayed his answer: "Yes. Water mixed with sodium chloride and numerous other chemicals commonly found in commercial shipping ports."

Before anyone else could speak to his odd reaction and ask what else he'd come across, Lerschen piped up again. "Well, that confirms it for you. The garbage cars that come out of Massena? They run over the same tracks as intermodal freight trains taking a shortcut from Chicago to Montreal."

"How do you know so much?" Ray queried.

"My little brother is a locomotive engineer," Lerschen explained. "He runs intermodal trains from western New York to points upstate on his regular job, tailor-made to compete with barge traffic on the St. Lawrence Seaway. He usually doesn't run the full distance, but he knows that they cross the border at Fort Covington before they run on to Montreal for a customs inspection."

"So you've, uh...." Kowalski hesitated for a moment, trying not to snicker, knowing how it would sound. "You've got the 'inside track' on it, then."

"Pun intended?" Lerschen was the only one who chuckled amidst the disgusted groans of the others.

"Yeah, sure. I guess so."

"So how long does it take the train to get from Chicago to the border crossing?" Elaine asked.

"Anywhere from three to five days," Lerschen answered. "The big catch is, it's against the law for train crews to work more than twelve hours per shift. So if they hit their limit and there's no one to relieve them, the train has to stop and sit somewhere for God only knows how long. To hear my brother tell it, the Lake Shore Corridor is so jammed up with parked trains that your suspect container could be on any one of a dozen of them."

"Well, if whoever killed Wichmann is behind this Grand Theft Teenager game as well, the buck ain't gonna stop there," Ray said grimly.

"I hate to say it, but it's already out of our hands," Elaine admitted. "When the Feds get here to haul those two dirtbags off, we'll have to let them know what to look for and where." Seeing the downcast faces of Fraser and the Rays, she added: "I know how you feel, guys. I wish we could follow you to the end, but Cullerton's out of our jurisdiction as it is."

"We'll have to forward the autopsy reports to the New York State Police, as far as that goes," Hernandez put in. "Want me to start laying the paper trail?"

"You might as well."

"So, uh, what about us, then?" Kowalski asked.

"Well, the trail appears to be coming full circle," Fraser spoke up. "It began somewhere along the St. Lawrence Seaway and appears to be leading us back there now. I think we have an opportunity to catch the smugglers in the act - and make sure they're held accountable for the murders of both Mr. Wichmann and Ms. Merino." Oddly, he hung on the first syllable of "Merino" just enough for Ray to notice - he also shot a quick but observable glance at the floor. Ray frowned, sensing something in the Fraserverse out of sync.

"Okay, so we go roarin' into upstate New York like gangbusters, we nail the bad guys and cause more skull fractures than a hailstorm," he said. "Any part I left out?"

"No, Ray," Fraser said. "That's the general idea."

"All right, look, Benny, it's time for a reality check. Take a look in the mirror, willya? Look at your hair. Look at Kowalski's hair - hell, look at _my_ hair."

"What hair?" Elaine said, trying to stifle a snicker.

"I wasn't gonna say it," Kowalski muttered under his breath.

"You get the picture, though," Ray went on. "Last time we pulled off anything like this, the World Trade Center was still standing, Dief was still alive, and the Barenaked Ladies were still Canadian. Now take a good long look at these three things and see what they tell you about the gettin' of old. Do we look like we're anywhere near thirty or even forty? No, so you tell me what our chances are of goin' in there shooting and comin' out alive."

"Well, those facts do speak for themselves, but so do I." Indeed, Fraser's tone grew firmer and firmer with each word he spoke. "I remember Buck Frobisher lamenting old age in nearly identical terms. He was crowding seventy when you first met him. But he never forgot who he was or what he was capable of, and neither have we. We've outfought and outrun three of the most despicable criminals known to exist. You terminated one of them, Stan, and we apprehended the other two. We've rescued two victims at the same time, and we've found a clear path through the wilderness. We're definitely older, Ray, but we're far from old. I feel we still have a kick left. If you feel an insatiable desire to administer that kick to the head of some malfeasian on the shore of the St. Lawrence, speak now or forever hold your peace. Because lest you forget - the World Trade Center is standing once again. And no matter what any of today's music critics tell you, the Barenaked Ladies are _still_ Canadian."

For a moment dark silence hung over the corner of the squad room. Then, finally, Kowalski lifted his head and grinned. "And for a minute I thought you were gonna come up with another long drawn-out ADHD Mountie story."

"Yeah, well, he's already belted out the Eskimo tale," Ray said morosely.

"So what are we waitin' for?" Kowalski said, tossing up his hands. "You guys wanna talk about gettin' older, well, we sure ain't gettin' any younger." He started to pace backwards toward the main doors of the squad room. "You comin', Pete? We're headed your way."

"Uh, yeah." For a moment Lerschen seemed lost and confused, but then he gave an awkward wave. "Yeah, I'll be right with you."

As he moved away to join Kowalski, Elaine held still except for a brief shrug of her shoulders. "Well, I guess all we got left is good luck, then," she said to Fraser and Ray. "We've got each other's numbers in case we come up with anything else, or if the FBI actually does something useful for once."

"Thank you kindly, Elaine." Fraser nodded his head, but his tone was much quieter than before. He offered neither hug nor handshake, instead sidling behind Ray to head toward the door. Ray turned and watched him, resolving to ask Fraser what was eating him at some point during their northeastward journey.

"Well, it's been a real pleasure, Fraser," Hernandez said, catching him short in his steps. "And, you know, if we're lucky....maybe it will be again someday."

Her smile was just a few degrees cooler than sultry. Fraser stared at her for a very long moment: his gaze was no longer that of a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming trailer truck, but rather that of a timber wolf guarding its territory against all enemies. He turned and eyed the clock on the wall across the squad room. Then without a word, he turned away altogether and headed for the doors.

"Aah, don't mind him," Ray said, waving a hand. "He's always been like that."

"No, he hasn't," Hernandez murmured. "Before now he was running scared, like he didn't know what to do. Just now he looked like he was ready to tear out my throat. I wasn't _that_ pushy, was I?"

"Don't blame yourself, Hernandez. You should have been here back when his hair still matched his eyebrows. You wouldn't have had a chance with him then, either."

"And I should know," Elaine added. "Well, Ray, you want to let us know if you turn up anything up there in the underbrush? It'd be nice for wrapping things up around here."

"Yeah, sure." Slowly Ray sidled over to Elaine and hugged her. "Just cross your fingers we get to do it in person."

"Both hands. The other one's in case you run into another one like Fostoria."

"Yeah." Ray clapped Elaine on the shoulder as he released her. "So long for now, Sarge." Then he turned and followed Fraser's footsteps to the main doors.

"Hey, Vecchio," Hernandez called after him. As he turned back, she offered him the tiniest quirk of a smile. _"Vaya con Dios."_

"Thanks," Ray muttered. Turning away again, he disappeared through the doors and made off for the precinct exit.

As though they were of one mind, body and spirit, Kowalski, Lerschen, Fraser, and Ray headed out of the precinct, back to their abodes - however temporary - and into the setting of the sun.

*********

_(A/n: Fanmix["Stupid"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPxVbbdll8A) by Sarah McLachlan)_

Unanimous though they might have been, their preparations to depart took very different paths indeed. Still in a state of mild shock from what he'd seen in the morgue, Fraser wondered at the rapid passage of time as he packed his knapsack with bare essentials. It passed completely over his head that the time flew so high on account of his own slow, detached movements, made in a viscous oil of disbelief and disturbance at what he'd seen.

He finished cinching the strings round his bedroll and stared across his desk. Between desk and bookcase sat Diefenbaker, his physical appearance the same as when he'd appeared to Fraser in the morgue. He still sat there motionless and soundless, not even responding to the corn muffin Fraser plucked from an otherwise empty Tim Horton's box. Regarding the lupine spectre with sadness in his eyes, Fraser put the muffin back in the box and finally broke eye contact with the dear animal to gaze at the row of photographs lined up neatly on top of the bookcase. He knew now why Diefenbaker had reappeared - and why he looked the way he did - but even knowing that brought him no comfort.

He didn't even know why he gazed so long at those photographs, pictures of people close to him, people he'd admired, people for whom the bell had tolled and people for whom he'd lost all respect or regard. None of them could have any conceivable effect on what he had to do to reach the bottom of the case. He stood to gain nothing from bringing any of those photographs with him. Right now the only people who could change the course of the investigation were in the pictures on his desktop - himself, Ray Vecchio, Ray Kowalski, and Diefenbaker, whether or not he had anything to bark for himself.

*****

Kowalski took a more practical approach than the others, clattering through his considerable arsenal of small arms. Some of the weapons he had taken as trophies of sorts from some of his more exciting investigations of armed stalkers. If anyone had put it to him, he would have freely confessed to growing weary of being hired to spy on suspected cheating spouses: but every once in a while, he found himself hunting a hunter, a significant other as obsessive as he - or she - was psychopathic. Fraser could make all the fuss he liked about his American companions carrying guns across the border, but having seen the rock-like soulless calibre of the bad guys they'd encountered so far, Kowalski was in no mood to go up there unprepared and he could count on Vecchio sharing in the attitude.

It didn't take him long to settle on a Smith & Wesson automatic, a 15-round .25 Beretta, and a nine-millimeter Sig Sauer, almost the same model Braits had been carrying during the museum assault. Suddenly Kowalski found himself thinking about the antique German pistol Fostoria had been carrying during that attack. Every other avenue so far was leading them inexorably to the western reaches of the St. Lawrence River. A World War II-era German army-issue sidearm and a German U-boat lying at the bottom of that river? As improbable as it seemed, it didn't seem coincidental either - they had to be connected somehow. Chortling to himself, Kowalski reflected that it was no more probable than a gang of criminals disguising a lake boat as a ghost ship to scare away interlopers.

Returning to his preparations, Kowalski uncovered in his footlocker a length of climbing rope and a grappling hook. If they _were_ dealing with sunken ships surrounded by criminal intrigue, who knew? It might find itself useful. He packed it away with the guns and turned to collecting extra clothes. At least Fraser most likely couldn't give him a hard time about the grapple - and strangely, Fraser appeared to be in the mood to give him and his other companions a hard time about anything. Kowalski had never seen him acting so disturbed, short-tempered almost. Somewhere up the road lay a confrontation over that subject.

*****

Ray, meanwhile, had expected disappointment to descend upon the Vecchio household, but he hadn't expected to feel as choked up as he did. Alonzo had the look of a sad puppy as he watched Ray stuff clothes and personal effects into an enormous suitcase, reluctant to leave yet hell-bent on solving the case. Home from the hospital with a nondescript Band-Aid now covering the shrinking bruise on her forehead, Gina curled up next to Francesca on the couch and watched her uncle with less disappointment than hope. She'd heard and seen enough to know that those scumbags who had absconded with her and the other three girls hadn't been working alone, and a very small part of her wished she could be there to see Ray make mincemeat of their bosses.

The rest of her, however, was content to stay at home and recover for a couple of days. When Ray finally finished packing, he heaved a wordless sigh and ruffled Alonzo's hair for the dozenth time, rewarded with the boy's glib remark that they would look nearly alike in ten years if he kept it up. Any other time, Ray would have had a typical Vecchio comeback loaded and ready, but knowing what he had to do and for whom he was doing it dampened his spirits somewhat. He held Gina for well over a full minute after she mustered herself to get up and fare him well. At last he reached over and pulled Alonzo in close, initiating a group hug with both kids from which Francesca wouldn't be excluded. Neither would Arabella - she had been hunkered in the opposite corner of the couch colouring paper dolls, but she was out of it within seconds of her mother arising, inserting herself between Francesca and Alonzo. She smiled at Ray with a clarity in her gaze she had not often displayed. Ray clenched his teeth as he reached down to squeeze her shoulder, wondering if he would even have the heart to go back to Florida after this was over.

"I don't know if I ever said thank you for pushing to get Gina back like you did," Francesca said as she walked him to the front door.

"Aah, you didn't have to." Ray turned, and Francesca was stunned to see moisture in his eyes. "Not that she'll ever admit it, but she's just like you, Frannie. The whole time, I kept thinkin' about when Eddie Bartolo tried to turn you into a porn star and finally we all ended up tellin' him where to get off the bus."

"The nut doesn't fall far from the tree, huh?" Francesca smiled.

"Not this time." Ray forced himself not to think about his own similarities or differences from his father - the man had been dead for a quarter of a century and Ray hadn't even seen his ghost in almost as long. It would serve no purpose to remember him now. He pointedly crowded the memories out of his head as he embraced Francesca warmly.

"Be safe, willya?" she said, trying not to crack. "You're a hell of a good brother, but you're an even better uncle. Don't make us lose you."

"Aah, don't worry about it," Ray answered jocularly. "I came out of Vegas alive, didn't I? I'll be all right." He smiled at her, hoping she couldn't see his face muscles contracting as he fought down his emotions, his affection for her and her children, his remorse at Wichmann's demise, his anger at Herada and Braits and whoever they'd been working for, his raging determination to find out who was behind it all.

"Love you, Ray." Francesca blinked and smiled back, but a tear escaped down her face all the same. Ray felt one coming on as well and quickly leaned in for a double cheek kiss.

"Love you, too, kiddo," he said, barely above a whisper. Hugging her one last time, he turned quickly away and headed for the door before wiping his eyes.


	17. Road Trip

Sighing, Ray lifted his eyes from the interstate for a few seconds' stare across the highway median into the westbound lanes. The sun had finally risen high enough that he could both put aside his sunglasses and fold up the sun visor against the ceiling. The Riviera had just followed the wheelsteps of one of its predecessors past the city limits of South Bend, and Ray could feel his teeth grinding involuntarily at the mere thought of having to close the circle.

"Remember the last time we did this, Benny?" he said, idly watching westbound traffic trundle by.

"I do indeed," Fraser said with a slight smile. He glanced at the Riviera's dashboard and made a casual motion with his hand. "I take it your cigarette lighter still works as intended?"

"Yeah, well, it's bulletproof. Literally. As in, it worked great even after you made me blow up my car the _first_ time."

"Well, frankly, I still maintain that it was a necessary evil, Ray. I'm sure Ian would agree."

"Yeah, maybe if he'd shut up about the alien invasion he singlehandedly repelled by raising a sunken battleship from the bottom of the East China Sea," Ray scoffed. He had half a mind to continue the rant, but the buzz and blare of his cell phone from his inner breast pocket interrupted. Fishing it out, he felt a jolt of excitement as he recognised Elaine's number on the caller ID.

"Vecchio," he answered. "Yeah, Elaine." Concentrating half on the road and half on Elaine's call, he didn't see the abrupt sunburst of epiphany filling Fraser's face. It would not have been the first time he'd said something that struck a chord with Fraser, but it was the first time he hadn't noticed his old friend's reaction.

"Great Scott," Fraser muttered under his breath. "Broken links!" He looked over at Ray, whose expression was one of disquiet mixed with intrigue.

"Oh, great," he said. "What'd they do, flood the whole barracks? Oh. Well, wonders will never cease. Yeah, we're on the road right now. Yeah, okay. I'll call you when we get there. All right, bye." He ended the call and dropped the phone in his lap, shooting Fraser a morose sidelong glance. "The Feds took Cullerton by storm. FBI, Treasury, Customs, you name it, they were in on it. They tailed one of Gamellan's jockeys down there and caught him backing his big rig into a loading dock at the old barracks."

"And?" Fraser said.

"Fifteen girls. _Fifteen_ of 'em, Benny. That's what, one every two or three days on average? And they were all seventeen or younger. The inside of the container was so soundproofed they never would have been able to call for help."

"Were the FBI able to trace the container's routing?" Fraser asked.

"Fort Covington, New York," Ray nodded knowingly. "Then across the border and on to Montreal. Wasn't the first box, either. Another one left the base on an intermodal train yesterday."

"Well, if Mr. Lerschen is right about the train delays, it could be anywhere between Chicago and Cleveland by this time," Fraser mused. "Is there some way of tracking the train's exact location, such as a GPS signature or a positive train control system?"

"Well, I can probably call Frannie and ask her to check into it."

"Mmm." Fraser was silent for a moment before he inhaled thoughtfully, holding an index finger aloft. "Ray, do you remember the corroded chain fragments I discovered in the reclamation plant the other day?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, interestingly, it's just occurred to me that not only were they corroded, but several of the links were broken. If they were discarded for cause, they very well may have been used in underwater salvage efforts already. But now what I find even more interesting is to juxtapose all this with Mr. Wichmann's last days, along with his military record."

"What are you implying?"

"Well, I'm not implying anything. I'm just thinking out loud. But the trail is definitely leading us full circle. And your notion about raising a sunken ship for a specific reason...."

Ray chortled. "Benny, my nephew's big into some old Japanese cartoon about a World War Two battleship that gets raised from the dead and turned into a spaceship."

"Actually, I believe you're referring to an 'anime'."

"Cartoon, anime, what's the difference?"

"There's a very distinctive one, in fact. You see, anime is less concerned with actual movement than it is with scenery, cinematography, and the emotive properties of its characters - "

"The point is, Fraser," Ray's voice rose with exasperation, "how is resurrecting a ship that's been at the bottom of a dried-up ocean for two hundred years relevant to...." Just as abruptly, his voice fell away, his eyes widening as he realised where Fraser was going with this.

"All right, hold on a second," he said finally. "You don't seriously think that....?"

"Actually, I do, Ray. I think you may have just narrowed down the motive for Mr. Wichmann's murder." Fraser was unable to elucidate before Ray's phone buzzed again, though this time sans the loud and harsh music.

Ray retrieved the phone from his lap and peered at the text message lighting the screen. "Kowalski," he announced.

"Ah, Ray...." Fraser said, motioning forward. To his dismay, Ray paid him no heed - he shot rapid-fire glances between the phone and the road, barely noticing the Riviera's slow drift toward the breakdown lane.

"Ray!" Fraser repeated. _"Ray!"_ Finally he reached over and pushed on the steering wheel, whereupon Ray dropped the phone in surprise and grabbed the wheel in both hands.

"Hey, hey, hey!" he shouted. "We're not goin' two for two with destroying my car on a cross-border road trip!"

"Then I suggest you mind the road," Fraser brusquely told him. "Distracted driving has consistently accounted for more fatalities than firearm incidents throughout North America in the last three years. And text-messaging behind the wheel is by far the number one killer."

"Fraser, what in the hell's gotten into you, anyway?" Ray demanded. "Ever since we left Chicago, you've been - "

"It's not important. The important thing is that we reach the end of our journey at more or less the same level of health as when we started."

"Okay, then I guess I better not tell you that Kowalski and Lerschen just left Chicago on an Amtrak and they're askin' where we're gonna match up," Ray snapped. He slouched in his seat and glared at Fraser, then faced forward and focused his whole being on the highway in front of him. For several minutes they drove on in silence, the awkwardness becoming more pervasive with each passing mile marker. Ray scarcely blinked, but he could still sense the penetrating looks Fraser was shooting at him.

Finally he rolled his eyes and sighed again. "I suppose you wanna drive the rest of the way?" he grunted.

"No, thank you. But I do have something to share with everyone when we meet up."

*****

"Somethin' tells me there's more salt on these french fries than there is in the whole Arctic Ocean," Kowalski said wryly. He plunked his tray down on a table in the east end of the café car and sat across from Lerschen, who had opted for a club sandwich with iced tea.

"Know what my wife would say to that?" Lerschen smiled.

"'Lay off the sodium pop'?"

"No. She'd say, 'Now, Peter, just in case it slipped your mind while you were doing all that research, we are married. And married people share things.'" Lerschen chuckled and took a hefty bite of his sandwich, eyeing the copy of _Wolves of the East Coast_ he'd given to Wichmann, now lying on the table in front of him. "What about you, Stan, you married?"

"Nah. Tried it once, but, uh, it didn't go over too good. By the way, ah, middle name's Ray. That's what I like to go by."

"Yeah, but doesn't that get a little confusing with the, ah, other Ray?" Lerschen said, forcing another chuckle.

"Yeah, well, it's a long story. And don't try'n get it from Fraser, he'll take about two hours to tell it." Kowalski munched a french fry and looked out the window of the train as the south shore of Lake Michigan undulated by. His mind was elsewhere - several hours ahead, on his next meeting with Maggie, of whom he'd been reminded by Lerschen's question about his marital status. For a Mountie girl, she was too damn cute, he reflected. He hadn't gotten to see nearly enough of her the first time she'd visited, and even then Fraser had run far too much interference. If only he could take another shot at getting close to her and still avoid her brother's wrath - and that was something Fraser had never seemed more likely to show than he did just before they'd left Chicago.

He refocused on Lerschen, who sat across the table, pensively staring at his book. Angling his chin, Kowalski queried: "What, don't you like the cover art?"

"Oh, no, I like it just fine. It's just....well, it's damned ironic. Erich first came to this country on a U-boat, he survived its sinking, and now all these years later it _still_ got him killed. Sort of makes you wonder about your own close calls, doesn't it?"

"That's why whenever I have a close call, I make sure it spends the rest of its life in the joint where it'll never come back to haunt me." Kowalski looked down at the tabletop and shrugged. "Or I just feel guilty about it for a few years and then go all out to get it off the hook. And I _still_ wonder if I'm doin' the right thing, y'know? I mean, when you know somebody's gonna die 'cause of you, it's not you pullin' the trigger or, or pushin' the needle, but still, it's your hand that threw the ball. It, it eats at you. Eats you right down to the bone." He paused, remembering the agony in Beth Botrelle's face as he'd walked her through the scene of her husband's murder - no - suicide. Everybody had treated it like a murder for so many years, starting with him, that he still caught himself forgetting the true nature of the death.

He tossed up his hands, sparing Lerschen only a brief look in the eye. "So what do you do? You make it right."

"Can we, with what we're doing?"

"Why, you think you had somethin' to do with Wichmann gettin' bumped off?" Before Lerschen could answer, Kowalski waved his hand. "'Cause I'll tell ya right off, Pete, you _cannot_ go around thinkin' like that. Next thing you know you'll be sittin' up all night wonderin' about it, and then your wife's gonna be like, 'Hey, Peter, while we're sharin' things, how about a pillow?'"

"Nah, we separate those, actually. She likes her Euro." Pensively, Lerschen took another bite of his sandwich and then looked out the window at the rapidly vanishing Chicago skyline. "How far ahead do you figure they are?"

"Who, Fraser and Vecchio? Beats hell outa me. There was one time me and Fraser drove all the way from Chicago to Sault Ste. Marie in one night to jump on a lake boat. You ever try stokin' a furnace on one of those things when you ain't got squat for sleep? 'Cause I'm tellin' you, that is _not_ how God intended us to spend our weekends."

"Well, actually...." Lerschen swigged his iced tea and then gestured backward over his shoulder. "I was thinking about the kidnappers. Didn't Sergeant Besbriss say that the FBI only stopped the second of two shipments?"

"Yeah, well, you said it yourself, the first one could be on any one of a dozen trains we're followin' right now. I mean, I don't even wanna think how many shock grenades it's gonna take to blow open every single box on every train."

"Unless there was...." Suddenly Lerschen's voice dropped and he squinted sightlessly at the bulkhead separating the lounge area from the concession stand. His mouth dropped open as epiphany filled his visage. "Or there is! An automatic equipment identifier. My brother mentioned it one time - every railroad car has one, and when it passes a wayside scanner, it gives you a real-time update on the car's location."

"So if the train just left Chicago yesterday, all we gotta do is follow the automatic equ-whatchathings and find out exactly where it's at," Kowalski concluded with face breaking in a grin, which he perforated with another handful of french fries.

"Got the makings of an epic adventure story, doesn't it?" Lerschen grinned back.

"Yeah, well, gonna be tough to beat this one time when me and Fraser went searchin' for the Northwest Passage...."

*****

The sun was glaring through the Riviera's angular rear window by the time Ray pulled off a municipal road outside of Topeka, Indiana, and started up a dusty dirt road parallelling a railroad track. A quarter of a mile ahead, he and Fraser could already see a unit train of double-stacked containers parked on a siding. Three enormous diesel locomotives in the dulled black and white livery of the Norfolk Southern Railway were in the lead, their quiet idling reminiscent of muttering, as if grumbling amongst themselves about the hours-long delay. Fraser leaned forward, squinting to see if the cab of the lead engine was occupied. No movement caught his eye, and he motioned for Ray to stop the car near a tree line a safe distance from the tracks.

Together he and Ray pried themselves out of the Riviera and peered down the tracks. The main line was clear: in front of the train, a three-light wayside signal burnt steadily red, forbidding it from leaving the siding. The adjacent signal governing the main line showed three red lights as well, indicating that any train approaching from the west had better be prepared to stop. Deeming it safe, Fraser beckoned and led the way over to the train.

Ray sighed, looking down the seemingly endless length of double-stacked containers stretching off into the distance. "All right, Fraser, this is the third train we've checked," he grumbled. "How many more do you figure we'll get away with before they sic the railroad cops on us?"

"Well, according to the AEI scans, this is the first train to have left Cullerton within the last twenty-four hours, so we must be getting warm," Fraser rebutted. "Besides, even if railroad police presence were deemed necessary, they need only take note of my uniform and the D.O. certificate Elaine gave you."

"Yeah, and take a week and forever just to check on our credentials. It ain't like it used to be, Benny. These days you see less red tape in a Thanksgiving parade."

"Well, quite honestly, I can't say as I have any firsthand experience to relate to such an event," Fraser said frankly. "Although, there was one occasion when my grandmother and a close friend of hers, an Inuit medicine woman, went to Yellowknife for Thanksgiving and stayed at a bed-and-breakfast. The owner had specially ordered a rather large quantity of Canadian Club whiskey for them, and I vividly remember several days of strange behaviour after they'd consumed the lot."

Ray snickered. "And let me guess, that was the only time your grandmother ever let her hair down."

"Well, actually, no, Ray. After she regrew it at the age of twenty-one, she never let it below her neck."

"Well, at least it grew back on her." Ray paused, sighed, and folded his arms, eyeing the quietly grumbling engines. "You know, I can't help thinking about the last time we tangled with one of these. Let's just hope this one isn't carrying any nuclear bombs."

"Well, at least this time there's considerably less chance of crashing into another train head-on."

"I dunno, Benny. It's gotta be said, we've never had much good luck with trains."

"Well, that's....that's very true." Fraser cast his eyes at the ballasted ground. Ray studied him, wondering if he'd just gotten a step closer to whatever was bothering his old friend. Truthfully, there was no love lost between them and rail transport - it seemed like every time they got near one of these things, trouble wasn't far off. For all he knew, Fraser might be thinking of the time he'd come home on the train from vacationing in Canada, only to find that Ray had disappeared off the face of the earth.

Finally Fraser raised his head and took a deep breath. "Do you have your lock picking tools?"

"What, did you forget your tuning fork in the far hinterlands of the Yukon?" Grunting, Ray pulled himself up the ladder onto the platform on the front of the engine, cursing his aching knees with every step. A few minutes of meticulous work with a hex key and an awl and he had the padlock on the front door undone. He and Fraser ducked through the engine's nose compartment and stepped up into the deserted cab, Fraser gratefully breathing the cool air blowing from the climate-control vents.

By now he knew exactly what to look for - the train list on the conductor's small desktop to the left. He picked up the thick, folded sheaf of printed paper and peered at it, blinking rapidly, wishing he hadn't left his reading glasses in his knapsack.

"Hmmm," he muttered.

"Fraser, didn't we talk about that?" Ray sighed.

"About what, specifically?"

"You always going 'hmmm'?"

"Hmmm." Fraser ignored Ray's annoyed scoff and reread the header on the train list. "Train symbol twenty-six-L," he muttered. "Origin, Kankakee, Illinois; destination, Jamestown, New York. I think we're getting close."

"Oh, so are you gonna taste it now, or what?"

"That wasn't my first thought." Fraser flipped a page and read down, focusing his stinging eyes on the "Destination" column. "Aha," he announced finally. "This train is due to be interchanged to the Adirondack, Champlain and Western Railway at Jamestown, cross the border at Fort Covington and continue on to Montreal. This is it, Ray. Now if we can locate our suspect container before the train moves again...." Fraser continued to run his finger down each page, but Ray couldn't help noticing that he seemed to squint harder and harder with every inch his finger traced down the page.

"Here, let me see that." Ray acquired the train list from Fraser's unresisting hand and produced his own reading glasses from a coat pocket at the same time. He perched them near the tip of his prominent nose and then picked up where, he could best estimate, Fraser had left off.

At length he shot a glance at Fraser, who was staring critically at him. He hadn't said anything, but Ray could speculate only that Fraser had an amused interest in the spectacles - each lens was the size of the average chocolate-chip cookie. Lowering the train list, Ray spread out his hands: "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Fraser said quickly. "It's nothing."

"Look, Benny, I'm no Steve Urkel, but the last time you went blind on me, Canada almost ate us alive. Remember?"

"Well, as I recall, it was no deterrent to building our means of escape."

"Yeah, and as _I_ recall, who do you think rowed, rowed, rowed our boat gently down the stream?"

"As _I_ recall, Ray, you gently rowed us straight over a cataract."

"Fraser, for the last time, a waterfall is a waterfall. A cataract is eye surgery, and if you don't shut up and let me read, you're gonna need some!" Glaring at Fraser, Ray snapped the sheaf of paper taut and continued reading. In the corner of his eye he could see Fraser staring daggers right back at him, but the Mountie said nothing. Just as well - Ray didn't feel like calculating how much time they'd wasted as it was.

Presently he lit on something in the train list that stirred his curiosity. "Hmph," he mused.

"Hmph?" Fraser said inquisitively.

"There's only two empty containers on this train. Two out of....looks like almost two hundred. That seem right?"

"It could very well be, but I suspect shippers don't typically care to send out a container that's not generating any revenue." Fraser leaned over, eyeing the line just above Ray's fingertip. "How close together are they?"

"Well, if I'm reading this right, looks like they're only one car apart."

"Let's go." Nodding once, Fraser stepped around Ray and back down to the cab door.

As they drove slowly down the dirt road alongside the train, Fraser peered at a small slip of paper upon which he'd written the numbers of the two suspicious containers. "I think we're getting close," he said. "Wait a minute....here it is."

They were halfway around a curve in the right-of-way. The locomotives were long since out of sight, and the end of the train lay somewhere off in the distance. Ray halted the Riviera in the middle of the road, whereupon he and Fraser heaved themselves out again, eyeing a dark blue container stacked on top of a red one nestling in the depressed center of the flatcar. Fraser reread the number and peered discerningly at the red box on the bottom.

"Here's our first one," he announced, gesturing.

"Bottom one?" Ray surmised. "Yeah, that figures we can't open the damn thing without lifting it out of the car."

"I think inaccessibility is the least of our worries, Ray. Notice the placard on the side." Fraser pointed at a diamond-shaped glossy label affixed to the side of the container: it glared bright green, printed with a white silhouette of a gas canister.

"So?" Ray grunted, tossing up a hand.

"It indicates a commodity that's either toxic or poisonous by inhalation. Concentrated chlorine, for instance, or anhydrous ammonia. Unfortunately, it works very well. As long as the container bears that placard, it's too risky to make any other assumption about its contents."

"And everybody else is happy to stay the hell away. So now what?"

"Now we rendezvous. And we hope we can divine what role toxic or poisonous substances have to play in this case."


	18. Fraser's Drive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ick. So this hiatus wasn't quite as bad as the last one, but just the same, sowwy to keep everyone waiting.
> 
> If you pick up the reference to "Shattered" (short-lived CKR cop show) in this chapter, kudos back atcha. ;)
> 
> (Also, please try not to hit me *too* hard with an otter at the end of this one.)

With half-hourly text messages being exchanged between Rays - and Fraser insisting on acting as middleman, much to Vecchio's annoyance - the rendezvous was arranged in Toledo at sunset. Fraser and Ray pulled up to find the passenger train just arrived for an extended pause to embark, disembark, and allow through passengers to step off and stretch their legs. They came upon Kowalski taking advantage of the break, leaning against an awning pillar and smoking a cigarette. Lerschen was nowhere to be seen, but he had a good ten minutes to do whatever he needed to before the train got underway again.

Fraser was in civilian clothes, but his Stetson still couldn't be missed. Even the peripheral sight of it proved enough to draw Kowalski's eye up from the platform: he raised his head and waved briefly to Fraser and Ray as they ambled up to him. "Hey, Vecchio, how's the knees?"

"Ever have a fisher cat try to amputate your whole lower leg with his teeth?" Ray replied.

"Heard from Elaine," Kowalski said. "Man, I bet there's gonna be some heads rollin' out of Massena before the day's out."

"Actually, I think we ought to push a little further on," Fraser said. "Is Mr. Lerschen about?"

"Hittin' the litter box, I guess." Kowalski gestured over his shoulder toward the interior of the station. Then he finished the cigarette and flicked it onto the tracks. "So how about this rock-solid lead of yours, Fraser?"

"Well, thanks to his tip about the automatic equipment identifiers, we know which train to trace." Fraser began to walk slowly toward the boarding point, Vecchio and Kowalski flanking him on either side. "Fortunately we're now ahead of it, so it will be easier to keep tabs on. We need only make sure to be there when the perpetrators take possession of the suspect container, and catch them in the act."

"Yeah, well, if you're right about it, I suppose you got some idea how they figure on gettin' it past that customs checkpoint."

"Actually, I do, Stan. The suspect containers - there are two of them - are both billed to destinations in northern Maine. To pass through Canada to a U.S. destination, they'll both be affixed with a customs seal and placed in bond without being inspected. When the train is unloaded in Montreal, it'll be easy enough for the perpetrators to transfer both containers to trailer trucks and then divert them away from the second border crossing. By the time customs officials realise something is amiss, it will be too late."

"So why not just drop a bug in the customs weenies' ears?" Ray said, tossing up his hands.

"I'm afraid it's not that simple, Ray. Canadian border authorities can't legally search a freight car whose final destination is not in Canada. All they can do is seal it and send it on its way. But by the time it's due to pass another checkpoint, the smugglers will be long gone."

"Gone _where,_ Fraser?" Kowalski pressed. "For that matter, gone _how?_ You know what the word 'intermodal' means? It means here in America, we don't move everything just by dog sled."

"I'm well aware of that, Stan. And I believe the alternate mode will be by water."

"You mean _under_ water," Ray said cynically. "You ready for this, Kowalski? Mountie-Man here has 'em figured for makin' TV Movie of the Week with an old rust bucket of a submarine."

Kowalski closed his eyes for a long moment, and Fraser briefly wondered if he would still be himself when he reopened them. "Uhhh, run that over me again. 'Cause, uh, I think I gotta get my shock absorbers and what-the-heck struts checked."

"You heard correctly, Stan," Fraser said. "It seems clear that we're chasing after a band of criminals who are into human trafficking, amongst other things. I believe we'll find that the salvage of the _U-896_ for a museum display is only a cover for using it as a smuggling vessel."

"Wow," Kowalski said, shaking his head rapidly. "Wow. That's, uh, I think I just woke up from a Clive Cussler novel."

"Not unlike a certain 'bountiful' lake cruise we took together once upon a time," Fraser reminded him.

"Let me ask you this, Fraser," Ray spoke up. "In all the years that I've known you, do you remember us heading anywhere even remotely this crazy?"

"Well, Ray, I admit it does strain the outer fringes of reality somewhat," Fraser conceded. "But like so many of our previous ventures, the disbelief suspension system needs to be fully functional."

"Get over it, Vecchio," Kowalski chimed in. "This is, this is everyday normal compared to a whole mess of fresh-meat Mounties takin' on a lake freighter with a sailboat."

"Yeah, so what about a horde of Mounties bustin' out of a speeding train?" Ray retorted.

"You ever see a big frickin' red cloud parachute out of a transport plane on top of a surfacing nuclear sub?" Kowalski shot back.

 _"Guys!"_ Fraser snapped, spinning on both of them. "To everything there is a season. Arguing season is over, investigating season is in full swing. Now as a staff sergeant in the RCMP, I have a duty to enforce appropriate seasonal activity. It's time we move fast and drive hard. Let's go."

His steely gaze left no room for contradiction. He spun on both heels and marched on down the platform, leaving two baffled Rays at his back.

"He's in a hell of a snit, isn't he?" Kowalski muttered.

"I only saw him get this bent out of shape once," Ray mused.

"Yeah, when was that?"

"Right before I shot him in the back."

 

As he strode down the platform, Fraser scarcely blinked in his search for a distraction, any distraction, anything to force his quandary out of his head. Blessedly, he passed close enough to the train's conductor to find one, however brief, as the blue-uniformed gentleman glanced at a gold-burnished pocket watch chained to his jacket button. Much time had passed since Fraser would have been able to read the lettering on its face, but he recognised the large-blocked Arabic numbers of a Hamilton Railway Special, a classic timepiece that had become more of a collector's item in recent decades. Silently yet quickly, Fraser ran a search of the watch's history through his mental library - with timetable-based operation, its _raison d'etre,_ all but obsolete, few were left in the possession of an active railroad worker. Fraser allowed his stream of consciousness to run as far as the Swiss quality of the antique timepiece before the conductor dropped it back in his pocket and raised his head.

"Ladies and gentlemen, five-minute heads up!" he hollered to the people lounging on the station platform. Fraser nodded and smiled a polite thank-you and half-turned as Lerschen exited the station. The look of relief on his big, broad face led Fraser to posit that Kowalski's guess hadn't been far off.

"Ah, Mr. Lerschen," he offered as a forcibly pleasant greeting.

"How goes the journey?" Lerschen queried affably.

"It draws near a long-awaited end."

"Hope you don't mean anything too final by that."

"Oh, no, not at all. As a matter of fact, Ray and I believe we've narrowed down the train to keep the closest eye on. I wonder if you could contact your brother and ask if he expects to recrew a train at Jamestown within the next day or two."

"I suppose I could. Did you happen to notice the number on the lead engine? That's what he'll end up using to identify the train."

"Yes, actually, our train is led by Norfolk Southern...." Fraser's voice trailed off again. He looked past Lerschen, his eyes widening with alarm, his mouth falling open in disbelief. "Ninety-four-seventy," he exclaimed flatly.

Lerschen watched baffled as Fraser bolted for the west end of the platform, but his bafflement didn't last. An unmistakable triangle of headlights could be seen barrelling up the main line as it curved southward past the station. As the train, bell ringing loudly and clearly, leaned into the curve - rumbling along at no less than forty miles per hour - the glare from the headlights diminished and Lerschen could make out the number 9470 gleaming from the lit boards on the front of the engine. He ran after Fraser, already convinced of what Fraser no doubt dreaded, that their target train was in the midst of overtaking them.

"Darn," Fraser semi-cursed to himself. He stood rooted to the platform, watching helplessly as the train thundered past the station and continued obliviously eastward, leaving him and his friends in a cloud of dust and exhaust.

He turned, speechless, as Lerschen caught up with him and cleared his view of Ray and Ray running down the platform toward them.

"Hey, Fraser, Canada's _this_ way!" Kowalski shouted, gesticulating back behind him.

"Do you have to chase after every train you lay eyes on with a pump car?!" Ray yelled.

"Ray, I'm afraid we find ourselves in a bit of a pickle," Fraser announced. "Our train appears to be getting a jump start on us."

 _"Head_ start, Fraser," Kowalski snapped emphatically. _"Head_ start!"

"Ah, right you are. I'm sorry, I stand corrected. Head start it is."

"Well, forget about it," Ray cajoled, beckoning. "C'mon. We'll buzz up the state police, have 'em hold it up the line. Let's go get it while the gettin's good!"

He started to backtrack toward the parking lot, but focused as he was, the conductor's piercing shout almost completely escaped his notice.

_"All abooooaaaaaard!"_

"Ray!" Fraser called after him, leaping for one of the open vestibules. _"Ray!_ Come on, while there's still time!"

Growling wordlessly, Ray whirled around again, ready to berate Fraser for not making up his mind. Nothing, he soon discerned, could be further from the truth: Fraser was already bounding up the steps into the nearest vestibule, Kowalski close on his heel and Lerschen immediately behind.

 _"Damn,_ he's still the most irritating man in the world!" Ray snarled to himself. He retraced his steps for the third time, and in his haste to board the train he nearly tripped and barked a shin on the vestibule steps. He barely made it up and into the interior of the last coach on the train, just ahead of the baggage car on the rear, before one of the trainmen secured stairwell and door. At the front end of the coach, they grouped in a luggage space, Fraser cocking an ear to the chatter on the trainman's portable radio.

"So what do you wanna do now, hijack the damn train?" Ray demanded.

"Certainly not," Fraser asserted. "But this affords us a much greater chance of overtaking that freight train again."

"So what, we're gonna leapfrog it all the way to the border, is that what we're gonna do?" Kowalski shrugged.

"Well, unfortunately it seems there's little else we can do," Fraser admitted. "I should have thought further ahead. That was the first train to leave Cullerton yesterday and therefore will be the first one to reach its destination."

"Still take a good day and a half, maybe two days to get there," Lerschen pointed out. "Even if my brother catches it, and he doesn't waste any time. But when it does hit Montreal, then what?"

"Then it's on to the St. Lawrence River." Fraser's gaze was steady, his voice unwavering. "Then I should suspect it's on to a destination well outside of Canada. That's why Mr. Wichmann is no longer alive today. Whatever criminal organisation is operating up there, he discovered that his U-boat was at the centre of their scheme."

Fraser could have claimed to be the reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar or Peter the Great and been met with less scepticism from his friends. Lerschen closed his eyes tightly, reopened them, and stared unblinkingly at Fraser. "Come again."

"You heard right," Ray said morosely, well remembering his and Kowalski's reaction to Fraser's theory. "Gives a whole new meaning to 'off the deep end', this does."

"Well, what happened to souvenir hunting?"

"A red herring, nothing more," Fraser answered. "That's why Mr. Wichmann wanted to meet you under the radar at the museum, to tell you that he'd happened upon the true plot and intentions. The note he wrote in that book led the killers to you, but when we interfered with their assassination attempt, they were ordered out of town after helping to clean house. And if they were about to execute their final move from Chicago to the St. Lawrence, they must be almost ready to move beyond Canadian waters."

"Still an awful big piece of moose hock to swallow, Fraser," Kowalski commented. "You might as well bet on the Patriots winnin' the Super Bowl a fourth time."

"Well, you know, Stan," Fraser said reflectively, "a long time ago, an ancestor of mine held firm that once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"He's got a point, though," Lerschen said, gesturing at Kowalski. "It _is_ practically impossible. Sure, the water in that part of the river is mostly fresh, but is the boat really in that good a state of preservation? And even if it is, you know how much hull repair they'd have to do to make her seaworthy again? Even when they found the _U-534,_ it took them another seven years to salvage her. The _U-896_ was found only a little over a year ago. And if they know now that Erich was onto them, how do they expect to raise her without being noticed in the first place?"

"Whenever we can secure an RCMP patrol boat to investigate the wreck site, I believe most if not all will be revealed," Fraser said. "The Quebec North Shore Maritime Association is the only organisation we know to be involved with the salvage, so I intend to ask my sister to look into it before we arrive. But we have yet to clap a positive identification on our smugglers, so we have no ideas as to their resources. For all we know, the QNSMA may only be a cover for not only the smuggling but for the murders they've committed to keep it quiet."

"Well, guys, it's got to be said," Lerschen said, heaving a loud sigh. "This is the craziest sting operation I've ever been part of."

"This is the _only_ sting operation you've ever been part of," Ray pointedly reminded him. "For that matter, even with that automatic I.D. gadget, it's only gonna work if we're able to keep an eyeball on two containers out of almost two hundred." He peered through one of the windows of the coach as the passenger train began to overtake the freight train on a parallel track. Suddenly he frowned and straightened up to make a beeline toward the nearby vestibule. He stepped to the side door of the coach and glared through the window, searching in vain for a sign of the giveaway placards on the two containers they had in their sights.

Pushing away from the side door, he headed back for the coach's interior. "Hey, Benny," he called out. "You remember the numbers on those...." He stopped short, in both speech and step, in the middle of the vestibule doorway. Lerschen and Kowalski both stood there, staring expectantly at him - but Fraser was nowhere to be seen. Only upon seeing the expression on Ray's face did it dawn on the other two that the Mountie had vanished from right under their noses.

Ray moved past them, searching the inside of the coach for any sign of Stetson, jacket, or whitening hair, but his corneas came up empty.

"Where the hell did he go?"

 

Fraser squeezed his eyes shut against the howling wind and tried to convince himself that this was his only recourse. Foolish as it seemed, it was his only hope of fulfilling his duty. He would not allow his quarry to slip through his fingers again. It would be like admitting he was getting old - or human. He tensed his limbs, wincing at the sharp ache that suddenly shot through his right thigh. He took a deep breath, held it, and opened his eyes, looking back toward the front end of the baggage car. No sign that any of his companions had noticed his departure - but it was just as well: he couldn't imagine them sitting still for what he was about to do.

He turned again and started at the sight of a face that hadn't been present before. Despite the constant bouncing and swaying of the car, Diefenbaker maintained freakishly perfect balance on all four feet atop a stack of duffel bags beside Fraser. He yapped - the first time he'd spoken since he first reappeared - and pawed at the bag on top of the pile, leaning toward Fraser with none of his old wounds visible, save one.

"Yes, I know, boy," Fraser said quietly. "But if I never accomplish anything again....this is my life's task, since before you were born....until after you died." He blinked hard to keep a tear from escaping just at the thought of it. Then he stared through the open side door of the baggage car at the stacked containers of the freight train, receding past him with strange slowness as the passenger train overtook it, faster and faster with every section of rail. The distance from the doorway to the side plate of one of those flatcars could be no more than a metre. Fraser looked at Diefenbaker again and reached up to rub his neck, but his hand passed straight through it. Fighting off a wave of sadness with a surge of determination, Fraser braced himself in the doorway and leaned out to see that the freight train's engines were no more than thirty metres ahead.

_"Fraser!"_

His adrenaline froze and he whirled around at Ray's familiar holler. Both his friends were plunging into the baggage car toward him, tripping and stumbling over loose bags all the way.

"What in God's name do you think you're doing?!" Ray shouted.

"This is not what I meant by leapfrogging, Fraser!" Kowalski yelled, his voice nearly whipped away by the wind rushing in through the open side door.

"It's the only way to stay close enough to catch the perpetrators in the act!" Fraser yelled back.

"Well, in case you hadn't noticed, we're gettin' our head start back!" Ray roared.

"I can't risk it, Ray! I won't take a chance of losing sight of our targets again!"

"Oh, but you'll gladly take the chance of breakin' your damn neck?!" Kowalski hollered in disbelief. "That's greatness, Fraser! That's, that makes a world of sense! You get a scholarship to the Vulcan School of Logic, go you!"

"Logic or no logic, neither is it a topic of debate!" Fraser persisted. He leaned out the open door and squinted through the wind, accelerated not only by the passenger train's ever-increasing speed but by the air currents curling and swishing every which way around the container train. Both trains were now thundering side-by-side on double track, but the passenger train, as it steadily picked up speed, had almost overtaken the container train entirely. The latter's engines were near, and Fraser's intentions were irrefutable.

"You know, if I didn't know you any better, I'd be raisin' the state police to cart you off to the funny farm!" Kowalski exhorted.

"It wouldn't work anyway! We escaped from a rubber room one time using only a belt buckle!" Ray yelled over his shoulder. "Hey, Benny, tell me something! Don't people ever board stationary vehicles in Canada?!"

"All the time, Ray," Fraser replied without looking at him. "Sometimes the dogs have to go, too, you know." He braced himself in the doorway and leaned out again, but the trains were now barrelling around a moderate curve to the right and he couldn't see how close he was to the container train's engines. All he could see at the moment was that he now had a jump of perhaps two or three metres from the doorway to the rear platform on the last freight engine. Presently the curve eased and straightened into tangent track - and Fraser suddenly saw that he was less than a car length away.

"This is it," he exclaimed. Cinching his Stetson on his head, he turned toward the inside of the baggage car. "See you at the rendezvous, gentlemen!" Then he threw a jaunty salute to his friends, turned for the doorway, and gathered himself for a flying leap.

He got as far as midair between trains before he felt a bone-crushing grip exert itself on each of his arms. Involuntarily he regressed, and as involuntarily he flailed outward with both legs as if trying to reach out to the freight train and pull himself on board. Despairingly, the gap opened again, until he felt the inexorable force of gravity upon him and he fell flat on his back on the floor of the baggage car.

The angel on his right shoulder and the devil on his left both screamed in his ears on impact, though not half so loud as the nerves in his right leg. This time, not only did the bullet wound in his back literally stab him with agony, but his entire right thigh exploded with pain - as if every knife and bullet wound he'd ever suffered in that limb had suddenly torn open again. The pain coursed up and down his body in waves, and he lay prostrate on the floor of the car, almost as paralysed as he had been when that bullet wound had first been inflicted.

He was vaguely aware of both Rays at his sides, both lying in distended piles of baggage where they'd landed after pulling him back into the car. Just as vaguely he heard Vecchio berating him, but his friend's voice was gone with the wind, the roar of the freight engines' exhaust, and the excruciating pain burning up his leg and his lower back. Groaning loudly, he ground his teeth together and tested his arms to make sure they at least still worked. Finally he mustered the strength to push himself up to a sitting position, and there he sat against the wall, teeth clenched with agony, trying to remember where the RCMP Administration Manual made any mention of getting old.

At length, Kowalski got up and staggered over to the open doorway. He reached for the nylon strap hanging from the rolled-up door and heaved on it, yanking the door downward, until the wind suddenly ceased as he slammed the door shut and dogged it down. Then he turned and leaned against it, shaking his head. Fraser sat stiffly against the wall and massaged his thigh, his face still contorted with gnawing pain.

"Okay, Fraser....listen," Kowalski panted. "You oughta know better'n to try that without a fire extinguisher handy. What you just tried to do....was _not_ in the finest traditions of Her Majesty's service. You think it was one of your _better_ ideas? It's one thing to go tear-assin' from Chicago to Sault Ste. Marie like bats outa hell, it's a whole 'nother thing to jump from one moving train to another just 'cause you missed it at the station."

"It was a necessary evil, Stanley," Fraser defended, his tone harsh and his glare withering. "That's a principle you would do well to look into after this is over. We know that this is leading to a sinister and repulsive place that no decent human being cares to dwell on. The perpetrators must be stopped, and it is our responsibility to see that they answer for what they've done."

"Fraser, take a look at yourself, willya?" Ray eyed him piercingly from his perch on top of a suitcase the size of an office desk. "How many of those old war wounds are comin' back to haunt you all of a sudden? You keep pushing yourself like this and you'll push yourself right over another damn waterfall. Now Kowalski and I both know there's somethin' going on here you're not telling us. So as far as we're concerned, either you level up, or you're not crossin' that border."

"I beg your pardon?" Fraser said askance.

"C'mon, Fraser," Kowalski said. "You're not actin' like yourself. I don't know who you are actin' like, but it ain't Queen Victoria."

At once Ray saw the flash of shock and anger in Fraser's face. He had his suspicions about the Mountie's atypical behaviour, and Fraser's reaction to Kowalski's assertion confirmed them near enough. He leaned forward, elbows braced on knees, and narrowed his gaze. "Out with it, Benny. You heard Lerschen, it's still gonna take us a good two days to get to Montreal from here. So c'mon, let's have it."

Fraser sighed heavily and gazed at his boots for a long moment. Then he shook his head and raised it, the shock and anger gone, replaced by regret and despair. "It's Elaine's murder case from a week ago," he said mutedly.

"What, you mean the vic that turned up in the same reclamation plant as Wichmann?" Kowalski asked.

"Indeed. The victim's name was not Elizabeth Merino. It was Victoria Metcalf."


	19. Revelation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hurt me for this one. Please.
> 
> (Also, a hefty 'thank you kindly' to KLessard for her corrective advice on the Montreal scenes, especially with most of the French phrases.)

Kowalski had only to watch Ray straighten up his posture with agonising slowness, his eyes almost as wide open as his mouth as he pulled in a deep, shaky breath, to know what an industrial-sized can of worms he had just carved open.

"So what?" he said, spreading perplexed hands. "Who the hell is Victoria Metcalf?"

"Well," Ray expelled the breath in a long sigh, "you could call her our worst enemy, but she'd give you a poisonous kiss for sayin' it."

"Okay, look, I'm drownin' in what-the-hell here and I'd, uh, I could go for a messenger line."

"Victoria Metcalf was a bank robber," Fraser said tonelessly, staring at nothing particular. "In nineteen eighty-four, she and her accomplices stole half a million dollars from the Anchorage National Bank in Alaska and parted ways. She flew across the border into the Yukon and I was called to track her down and bring her in. But as I followed her up Fortitude Pass in the middle of a whiteout, I was strangely impressed by her ability to survive in the wilderness. She knew shelters, she knew fire building. But she was underequipped for the conditions nonetheless, and after three days I could tell she wasn't going to last much longer. She'd expended her survival kit by the time I found her frozen nearly to death on the lee side of a mountain. I myself had lost all my packs, supplies....everything that could have staved off the inevitable. I used my rifle to build what might be our final shelter, draped my coat over it, and held onto her inside it while we waited for the storm to blow over. But it snowed for days; I was convinced we were going to die, and all that was left was to listen to her voice reciting that poem, time and time again.

"When the snow finally stopped, we made our way together back down the pass to the nearest outpost. She wanted me to let her go. But I had no frame of reference for what I was feeling. The only certainty I had in life, my one and only reason for being, was my duty, my responsibility to the law. The most painful thing I had ever done to date was to turn her in. I betrayed her, Stan. I never forgot....and I never forgave myself." He bowed his head again, tears filling his eyes.

"Yeah, neither did she," Ray muttered. "We both know what happened the next time you saw her, Benny." Seeing Kowalski's puzzled look, he continued the story. "She showed up in Chicago about a year after Fraser did. She'd already faked her own death using her sister as a cover and burned down Fraser's old cabin up north after planting ten grand under the floorboards. She spent a couple of days batting her eyelashes at him, knowing full well one of her old partners was following her. Made one hell of a mess. She had both of us fooled - started slipping stolen money into both our wallets. I even put her up at my house, and one of the first things she did was stick a big fat wedge between the two of us. Then she suckered her partner in and murdered him with Fraser's gun. Near perfect frame, wasn't it?" He didn't smile as he looked at Fraser, who made nary a sound, staring sightlessly at the floor of the baggage car.

"So I bailed Benny out," Ray went on, "but that snake wasn't done with him yet. The bad money got me suspended, and she got involved in selling diamonds on the black market and she used Fraser to move them. Finally he found a locker key she'd hidden at my house that she was gonna use to get me into the frying pan with Internal Affairs. I caught up with them at Union Station. Fraser swapped keys on her and nailed her with another twenty-five grand in the locker. She jumped a train heading for New York...." Here Ray caught his breath.

Kowalski glanced from one man to the other. Both of them seemed to be scrutinising the floor between their feet. Fraser had never told him this story, but it was a weighty one and no mistake, and he could tell it wasn't over. Nevertheless he held his tongue, waiting for Ray to finish.

"He tried to go after her. I saw she had a gun. Or I thought I did. So I took a shot...." Ray swallowed and sighed heavily. "A single bullet. And Fraser took it."

Dead silence descended. Kowalski slowly laid a large suitcase on its side and sat heavily on it, gazing at the floor, then lifting his head and gazing at Fraser. No wonder his old friend been so out of sorts since before they left Chicago - for that matter, no wonder all his old aches and pains were catching up to him so quickly and suddenly. Ray appeared to be physically ill himself, sagging in his posture, resting his head in his hands. Kowalski could tell that this one incident had changed their lives beyond all hope of reversal, and he briefly wondered what kind of man Fraser had been before it happened.

"How come you never told me, Fraser?" he said finally, making a questioning motion with his hand. "I mean, first time I ever met you, we went over all your old enemies from Geiger to Bodine to, uh, what was her name, Morgan. But even during that whole episode with Lady Shoes, remember all the back problems you were havin'? And you still never brought up this Metcalf woman, not once."

"What would you have me say, Stan?" Fraser's eyes had clouded. "That I was a flawed individual? That I condemned the only woman I ever loved to spend almost half of her life in incarceration for no good reason save duty, and I risked my best friend's career and probably his life attempting to make it up to her?"

"That you're from Canada, Fraser, not Krypton. I mean, just 'cause this broad Victoria turned out to be your kryptonite don't mean you're any better or worse off than anybody else."

"He's got a point, Benny," Ray put in. "It wasn't just about you, you know. I mean, she was the one who wouldn't let it go. Right?"

"I suppose I deserved as much." Fraser's voice had dropped to nearly a whisper and his head hung halfway down his chest.

"Yeah, well, I promised both her and myself I'd kill her if she ever hurt you. Looks like somebody beat me to it. Whoever it is has one hell of a debt to repay - hell, you might as well name me a co-collector for shootin' you in the first place."

"It wasn't your fault either, Ray," Fraser murmured.

"The hell it wasn't. If I'd taken that shot sooner...."

"And if I hadn't run after her...."

"Hey, whoa, time out!" Kowalski snapped abruptly, holding up his hands in T formation. "Jesus take the wheel, you guys ain't makin' pancakes here, there's no need for all the syrup! Another dozen fifteen-year-old kids mighta got snatched outa the street while you two was just sittin' there feelin' sorry for each other! Let's just get the hell over the border and get this the hell over with!"

Without hesitating, Fraser nodded sharply. "He's right, Ray."

"All right," Ray agreed. "Let's get it done."

**********

_(A/n: Fanmix is first two verses of["The River Driver"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_VcNUgG2Yk) by Great Big Sea)_

Even in spite of the vast hustle and bustle of Montreal Central Station, Fraser paid it no mind as he looked far across the concourse for many more meetings. Maggie had company - some familiar, some Fraser had never met: but he felt a grin stretching his face just at the sight of Maggie's. Her hair, still blonde but turning salt-and-pepper, was bunned below a regulation wheel-style hat, and her eyes remained ice-blue - clear and bright and sharp. She beamed at him and Kowalski like a sunburst, and Ray, watching from the rear, couldn't tell which of Robert Fraser's children made the first move to engulf the other in an all-consuming powerful hug.

He smiled all the same - Fraser and Maggie were closer than he'd have thought possible of two border-crossed half-siblings. Yet neither he nor Fraser missed the subtle change in Maggie's visage as she turned to Kowalski, who walked toward her much as a moose might approach a cool, refreshing and pristine brook in the middle of the woods. The ice in Maggie's eyes seemed to melt slightly under the warmth of Kowalski's own grin as he came forward and embraced her, kissing her on the cheek - they didn't dare kiss elsewhere with half a dozen fellow officers watching. As it was, only with much grudging did Ray heed Fraser's silent motion to turn his face away.

Between them and the concourse exit, Welsh and three other Mounties waited, uniformed in their everyday blues. One wore the insignia of a sergeant on his shoulders, standing about six feet, his light brown and spiky hair adding a couple of false inches to him. His eyes were similar to Maggie's in both colour and sharpness, and his square jaw set to make an aspiring shoplifter think twice. He introduced himself as Prescott, the sergeant of the RCMP's contraband section out of Montreal: then he gave the names of the other two Mounties as Rondeau and McTeague, both constables assigned to the marine division. Rondeau wore his jet-black hair in an apparently perpetual crew cut, but his bushy eyebrows presided over a keen and unwavering Russell Crowe gaze. McTeague was tallest of the three by far - and except for his height, he looked disturbingly similar to Fraser when he'd first come to Chicago.

Ray was admittedly amazed to see Welsh without an open case file in his hands and a fierce glare on his face - it had never even occurred to him that his old supervisor might actually be pleased to see him. Yet Welsh took him by surprise yet again as he reached forward, jowls deepening with his wide grin, and clamped Ray's hand in an iron grasp, shaking it as he might a fountain pen that had just run dry.

"Ah, long time, no see, Vecchio," Welsh exclaimed.

Ray hid his surprise by looking all around him and putting on a fake expression of confusion. "What'd I do now?" he asked plaintively.

"You brought back some memories, for starters," Welsh said.

"Good or bad?"

"Take your pick. We've got more than enough of both."

Coming up beside Ray, Lerschen called dibs on the next handshake. "Glad to see you made it, Harding."

"All you had to tell me was that we were going for a pleasure cruise down the St. Lawrence," Welsh replied dryly. "Knowing this crowd, I'd have found out the rest soon enough." He motioned at Fraser, Kowalski, and Maggie, of whom the last two were in closer quarters than seemed appropriate in _any_ circumstances, let alone these ones.

"And what is the rest, sir, if I may?" Fraser enquired.

"I'm shipping out with you tomorrow. Peter's idea. After seeing where those salvage ships were anchored, I've got a fair idea where we should look."

Ray nodded with approval and then looked through the windows toward the street. "All right, so where's the horses?" he jibed, smiling wryly at Fraser.

"See those three big silver ones right behind you?" Prescott said, pointing at the three engines on the point of the passenger train. The others had to make a concerted effort not to smile even as Ray shot Prescott a sneer.

Fraser interdicted before international relations could break down. "It's been a rather long trip, Ray. Surely you'd prefer a much faster means of conveyance to our place of rest."

"I dunno, Fraser," Kowalski threw in as he and Maggie made their way toward the main doors of the station. "Think I'd rather be smellin' a horse right now than a bunch of old guys who ain't showered for three days."

"Well, since you put it that way," Maggie grinned, swinging her arm around him. "You boys ready for some food, some showers and some bunks? We haven't got a lot of time, so it'll have to be the barracks down in Shaughnessy Village."

"Oh, yeah," Kowalski grinned at the other four Mounties. "She's definitely lookin' forward to gettin' me out of these clothes."

"American cops," McTeague muttered under his breath toward Prescott. "I still say we're asking for trouble, Sarge."

Ray pretended not to hear him as they made their way outside, where he, Welsh, and Lerschen heaved themselves into the back of an RCMP transport van waiting in front of the station, with Prescott shotgun and McTeague driving. Rondeau drove a Tahoe cruiser with Fraser, as the ranking officer, beside him: Maggie and Kowalski rode in back as Rondeau led the way toward the RCMP barracks several blocks away.

As cruiser and transport van made their way down René Levesque Boulevard, Fraser turned his head toward the back seat. "Maggie, were you able to get in touch with the German embassy?"

"Yep," Maggie nodded. "They heard about it before it made the news. The Quebec North Shore Maritime Association let the Germans in on their intentions within a week of finding the wreck. Everything went through the proper channels, no pun intended. But they decided to do it on their own instead of hiring a professional salvage contractor, and it seems they're taking an awful long time to get the job done."

"How so?" Fraser asked.

"Well, sir, supposedly the U-boat sank almost completely intact in shallow water," Rondeau chimed in with a noticeable trace of a French-Canadian accent. "Shallow _fresh_ water, at that. So the amount of corrosion's got to be minimal."

"So they wouldn't have to take as many precautions to get it off the bottom," Kowalski said.

"Exactly," Maggie said. "But for whatever reason, they're just taking their sweet, precious time about it."

"Did they establish a timetable?" Fraser asked.

"Nope. Rondeau's right, there really aren't that many physical obstacles to bringing the U-boat to the surface. Which makes me wonder if they haven't just run out of money already."

"Maybe that's, uh, that's why they're tryin' to get their goods over the road so hot 'n' heavy all of a sudden," Kowalski suggested. "Time to make some quick cash, before we catch up with 'em."

"Anything's possible," Maggie acknowledged, inclining her head. "There's something else strange. Supposedly, the QNSMA wanted to keep the wreck's exact location a secret to prevent souvenir hunters from poaching on it. But an embassy representative told me that the Germans sent a research team of their own to the U-boat's last known position, but they found nothing on the riverbed."

An indistinct siren, not unlike the klaxon diving alarm of a submarine, began to sound in the back of Fraser's mind, and his eyes narrowed as he stared sightlessly through the cruiser's windshield. "Last known position and last place of rest could be two entirely different locations. But between Mr. Welsh's familiarity with the river and Mr. Lerschen's knowledge of the U-boat actions of nineteen forty-four...."

"Only one way to find out if that's enough," Rondeau said quietly.

**********

"You hungry, Benny?" Ray asked as he marched up the street toward downtown in the gathering dusk.

"Thirsty, actually," Fraser said. "After all, we've heard an unprecedented amount of exposition in the past few days. You know what that does to me."

"All right, well, I think I know just the thing for you." Half-smiling, Ray started to cross the street on a beeline for a small brewpub tucked between the storefronts on the opposite side.

At once Fraser caught him by the arm before he'd even crossed the kerb. "Ooh, Ray," he exhorted. "Up here."

"Up here what?" Ray demanded.

"There's a pedestrian crossing up ahead," Fraser said, motioning toward a well-marked crosswalk half a block away.

Noting the distance, Ray rolled his eyes in unison with an upward jerk of his head. "Oh, c'mon, Fraser, I'm starving! Can't you invoke some kind of special Mountie privilege to cross us right here?"

"I'm sorry, Ray, but I can't do that. One misstep by an officer of the law and we could find ourselves on the path to total anarchy."

"Oh, gimme a break. You don't see Chicago on the verge of total collapse over somebody drivin' on the sidewalk, do you?"

"I'm afraid I can't give you a break, Ray. If you persist, all I can give you is a citation for jaywalking. Now come on." Inclining his head, Fraser headed for the crosswalk.

Ray heaved a loud and annoyed sigh as he turned and grudgingly followed Fraser up the street. "Y'know, it can't be said enough, Fraser, you are the most irritating man in the world. Who do you think kept gettin' you out of hot water with the State's Attorney every time he turned around, huh?"

Notwithstanding Ray's complaints, they crossed the street legally and made their way back down to the small brewpub. It was a solid effort at re-creating a small-town alehouse, complete with oak framing and furnishings, a live-music set-up, a large dart board on one wall, oil lamps hanging from the ceiling, and chatter mingled with laughter all around. At first Ray smiled at the scene, but his smile froze and then faded as he listened to the music wafting over the sound system.

"Oh, you've gotta be kiddin' me," he said, tossing disbelieving hands up and staring toward the ceiling. "French country music?"

"Well, yes, Ray," Fraser nodded. "Renée Martel, as a matter of fact, one of Montreal's most enduringly popular musicians for the last half century."

Ray scoffed as he followed Fraser toward the bar. "Geez, and I thought Justin Bieber should be deported for crimes against the Grammy Awards."

"Juno, actually," Fraser corrected.

"Juno?" Ray frowned. Knowing only one reference to that name, he enquired: "Well, other than Ellen Page bein' Canadian, what the hell has that got to do with anything?"

"Well, you see, it's...." Fraser's voice trailed off with the recognition that this conversation would get nowhere fast. "Not important."

They took a small, high, round table in one corner close to the bar. One of the barmaids approached almost immediately, a thirty-something woman smiling a bright, warm, saccharine smile at them. _"Qu'est-ce que je vous sers?"_ she asked.

Ray stared at her as if she had two heads. "Uhh, _non parléz-vous francais?"_ he offered.

Fraser winced, not only at what Ray had said but his terrible pronunciation. He smiled at the taken-aback barmaid and said, _"Désolé. Il est américain."_ Ignoring Ray's glare, he continued: _"Pour moi, ce sera un thé glacé aux framboises non sucré. Et_....Ray?"

"Uhh, a Guinness Stout," Ray muttered.

The barmaid, seeming to understand, smiled at them again, though this time showing far fewer teeth. _"Ça sera pas long,"_ she said, trotting off toward the bar.

 _"Merci beaucoup,"_ Fraser called after her.

"Fraser, if you just made me look like some brain-dead Yank...." Ray said, scowling threateningly at Fraser.

"Well, Ray, to be fair, you did tell her that she couldn't speak French." Fraser remained carefully expressionless while Ray rolled his eyes, rubbing his forehead slowly as he leaned on the table.

He maintained his posture when the barmaid returned with his beer and Fraser's unsweetened iced tea, and he still maintained it for a couple of minutes after she'd left. At length, he straightened up and heaved another lung-bursting sigh - though this one was empty of annoyance and soaked with regret. Fraser studied him. He could tell something was bothering Ray and he had a fair idea of what, but he also knew Ray wouldn't let on without being prompted.

"What is it, Ray?"

There was a pause of perhaps ten seconds while Ray gathered his thoughts. Fraser silently braced himself, foreseeing only one thing on his old friend's mind.

"Aaah, it's Victoria. You know, Benny, it's funny how just when you think you've put something behind you, it always comes around and stabs you in the back. Or shoots you, for that matter."

"I quite understand. I was a very young man when I first met her, and to say that my feelings were conflicted would be like saying that a curling stone is heavy. The only solid ground I could find to stand on was the rule of law. It's been thirty years since then, and her very existence has haunted me for the last nineteen of them. Now that she's dead....I'm not sure what to feel."

"Grief?" Ray offered.

"Anger?"

"Maybe relief?"

Fraser shook his head soberly. "I may as well face it, Ray, I've never known what to feel about her."

"Well, somebody sure as hell did. Somebody hated her enough to drown her."

Fraser stared past Ray toward the front window of the pub, pursing his lips with discontent. "Can you imagine a more despicable way to take someone's life?"

Ray chortled. "Yeah, I can, Benny. You watch somebody get lit on fire or covered in cement while they're screamin' for their life the whole time, it stays with you."

Fraser was silent for a moment while Ray pulled at his beer stein. It was the closest he'd ever come to speaking openly of the time he'd spent undercover with the Iguana family, but civility was not a popular concept in the criminal underworld - this was a well-known fact. Ray could never speak of what he had seen - either because he'd been sworn to secrecy by the Feds, or simply because he had witnessed atrocities too horrifying to recall: Fraser couldn't be sure which. He could only speculate on some of the things Ray had seen and done whilst he lived the decadent life of Armando Langoustini, and be thankful that there'd been enough of Ray Vecchio left for him to rediscover and reinvent. Fraser shook himself, he had more important things to speculate about. Scratching the side of his neck, he bent over the table and stared at it for a long moment.

"You know, Ray, Victoria had the best part of ten years to plot her revenge against me. When she fled Chicago, she had every reason to believe I was dead. But revenge is not something easily forgotten. If you spend roughly one-third of your life planning it, the mentality that you acquire has a way of shaping your every thought and deed."

"So what, you think she wanted to avenge herself on someone else?"

"I think it very well may be what led her to her death."

"So who might that be? Did he kill her before she could kill him?"

"Well, I can only speculate on both the individual and the motive, but I have a clearer memory than I'd like of Victoria blackmailing me into moving diamonds on the black market. And according to Francesca's research, as Elizabeth Merino, she was an itinerant antique dealer."

Ray half-grinned. "Remember the time you went undercover at that girls' school?"

"Speaking of things that'll stay with you...."

"Yeah, it goes without saying, those antique dealers weren't exactly legit. Two will get you ten Victoria didn't come by her loot the honest way. I'll bet she had a similar scheme going with someone else, and when it went south, he got to her first. Question is, who's the someone else?"

"Well, still, all we can do at this juncture is speculate. But she died in a manner very similar to Mr. Wichmann, and so I have a growing suspicion that Victoria was involved somehow with the smuggling. Only her death could prevent her from exacting revenge or spilling the proverbial beans - perhaps a bit of both."

"Think we'll find out before this is over?"

"I hope so, Ray. I earnestly hope so."

**********

To one side of a bunkroom in the barracks section of the RCMP detachment, Kowalski emerged from the latrine just in time to hear a knock on the door. At first he nearly jumped backward from the bunkroom back into the latrine, but remembering just in time that he had already donned sweat pants and a tank top, he took a deep breath. "Yeah," he answered.

"Can I come in?" Maggie's voice warmed him all over at once.

"Uh, sure, yeah."

"You sure? I don't want to walk in on anything."

"Nah, nah, it's fine. Come in already." Quickly Kowalski tossed his towel aside and rubbed water out of his ears with his pinky fingers as Maggie entered the bunkroom. She had let her hair down - that alone incurred an involuntary smile from him. She held a portfolio under one arm and she was smiling at him like no woman ever had before. Her eyes were so intense that he didn't even notice the deepened creases in her cheeks - she could be as silver-haired as her brother, old and decrepit, and Kowalski would never be able to look away from those laser-like blue eyes.

"Where is everybody?" she asked, putting the portfolio aside on an end table.

"Uh, I dunno." Kowalski rubbed the back of his head and tried not to look uncomfortable. "Out grabbin' a bite to eat, I guess. I just got out of, er, the shower."

"Well, then, I'm just in time." Maggie approached him - no, accosted him - and his face broke uncontrollably into a grin as they met in the middle of the room, and she kissed him firmly, and he kissed her fiercely, and they went on kissing like a pair of teenagers under a high-school stairwell. Kowalski's hair stood on end as he felt it going damp all over again, along with most of the skin under his tank top. He tried to back off, but Maggie held him tight - she could feel his sharp rise in temperature as well, yet at the same time she felt something even more electrifying, something she'd never even shared with Casey.

Until tracking down the Torelli brothers, she'd had no idea of Casey's double life - had no idea that he had simply used her to hold himself above suspicion: for who could possibly suspect a man who was married to a Mountie? She had been only a means to an end, a cover for his bank-robbing ways, and he'd had to die before she could find out what sort of man he'd really been. Even after that, she spent years feeling used up and emptied out, until she remembered the two new men in her life, a half-brother she'd never known and one of his best friends in all the world. With that best friend now - no less an American ex-cop, of all people - she experienced a spark of passion that you only ever felt once in a lifetime.

Indeed, it seemed all of a lifetime before they broke, but Kowalski kept his hands firmly clasped at the small of her back.

"Mmm, you _do_ love a woman in uniform, don't you?" Maggie murmured, lightly brushing her nose against his.

"Kinda depends on the uniform." Kowalski grinned, and Maggie with him, seeing the mischievous light in his eyes.

"Well, maybe we should get into uniform later on."

"Who says we can't get out of it?"

"As long as we can make it someplace out of my brother's hearing range." Maggie's voice was only a tick above a whisper.

"Yeah, like Cambodia, maybe." Kowalski chortled.

"Well, before we go that far, Ray, I have to show you something."

Kowalski feigned a surprised expression, complete with head-shaking. "Whoa, you, uh, you sure? 'Cause I swear to God that is not what I meant."

"Not _that_ kind of a something," Maggie scoffed, giving him a love tap on the arm. "Just take a look at this." She reached behind her for the portfolio on the table and opened it to reveal a stack of black-and-white glossy photographs. The first few all had one man in common, a man whom Kowalski recognised even before Maggie asked him.

"Know who that is?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that's Fostoria. He's the dirtbag who led the hit on Pete Lerschen at the museum last week. I took him down. Only got lucky enough to do it."

"No one really knows how he managed to keep jumping back and forth across the border under the noses of both our governments, but it's widely suspected that he smuggled himself along the St. Lawrence Seaway....ever since he was spotted hanging around with this character."

With that, Maggie showed Kowalski another handful of photographs. These included Fostoria, a second man whose face was turned away from the camera, and a third man - sixtyish, with thick, silver-streaked black hair slicked back, a grey goatee and a medium frame. His forehead had prominence over a pair of dark, narrow eyes. He reminded Kowalski of a doctor he'd met at the Illinois General Hospital on a few occasions.

"Him we've had under surveillance for a few months now," Maggie said. "He's known most widely as Galvin Shugg, the general manager of T. C. Sawchuk Building and Haulage. He also claims to be a semi-professional diver, searching for shipwrecks in the St. Lawrence. Supposedly it was he and his team who literally stumbled on the wreck of the _U-896_ when it snagged their dredging lines."

"But you don't think he's comin' clean."

Maggie shook her head, smiling cynically. "If they were searching for previously undiscovered shipwrecks, they were much too far upriver. And I've got other reasons to suspect this man Shugg isn't what he claims to be." She slipped another photograph from the bottom of the pile and handed it over. "What do you think?"

Kowalski felt every muscle in his body snap taut, and his lungs deflated as he regarded the third face in the photos. Fostoria was visible in the background and Shugg to one side, but the third face was now visible in profile - a profile Kowalski had learned to recognise in his sleep. The shaved head, the pinched face and the blunt nose had the photo shaking in Kowalski's hand as one horrifying memory after another crashed onto him like an endless avalanche.

"Oh, my God," he murmured. "That's....I know that guy. I mean, I knew him. I mean - I mean, I thought he was dead!"

"Who is he?" Maggie pressed.

"That's, uh, that's Perry 'The Penguin' Pengally. He's a mob guy from north Jersey." Kowalski sank into a chair beside the bunk and stared fixedly at the photo even as it shuddered in his hand. "How long ago did these get snapped?"

"Less than a year, all of them. The latest ones were taken in Quebec City this past summer." Maggie sat on the bunk and clasped both her hands around his free one. She could already see the look of horror in his eyes: all she had to feel was the tremble of his hand and the elevated pulse, far less the increased dampness on his palm. Something about that third man had shaken him to his core.

"Ray, talk to me," Maggie urged. "This man Pengally - who is he to you?"

When he looked up at her, she quailed, and she almost dropped his hand. Insoluble hatred and a lust for vengeance had replaced the horror in his expression. She felt as if she was nose to nose with a huge, angry, determined grizzly bear, a feeling only magnified by the vicious snarl in his voice as he answered her.

_"He's the son of a bitch who killed my old man!"_


	20. The River Drivers

"My God, Ray," Maggie whispered, massaging his hand. "Are you sure about this?"

"How sure were you that the Torelli brothers whacked your husband?" Kowalski demanded. Without waiting for an answer, he flung the photograph onto the bunk and pounded it with his fist. "My mom saw it happen. They were at this, uh, this trailer park on the shore of Lake Erie. Dad was just comin' back from a fishing trip when this slime-suckin' skunk came up and put a gun in his face. Mom saw the whole thing, but she was too far away to stop it. This guy, he, uh, he made Dad turn around and then he...." He paused to take several deep breaths, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to shut out an image only second-hand but no less ghastly to him. "He....God, he shot him in the back of the head. Twice! Like a, like in execution!"

"Your mother got a good look at him?" Maggie asked.

Kowalski nodded, his teeth grinding and his voice grating between them. "But he didn't come after her. I dunno why. He killed Dad, and then he was gone like, uh, like Honey Watson. Mom described him to everyone from the sheriff to the U.S. Attorney's office. But hit men, they, they know they're bein' hunted so they know how to cover their tracks."

"That's why you left the force and became a P.I." It was more of a conclusion than a question.

"For years I couldn't even find the guy's shadow. It's, uh, it's why I lost touch with Fraser for so long, too. I got so wrapped up in huntin' down the Penguin, and I knew what he'd say....but damn....damn it, Maggie, I never caught up with him. I _almost_ had him, too. I was _this close!"_ He drew back his lips in a snarl, holding up only a centimetre's space between thumb and forefinger.

"What happened?"

"He disappeared, last year. I almost caught up with him....but it was in Lac-Mégantic."

Maggie's breath left her in a rush. "Holy Mother, the oil train wreck!"

Kowalski nodded and clapped his other hand over hers. "You know it, Maggs. It wiped out the whole town and what, half a dozen bodies were never found. That's where I lost the trail. So I - I just figured Pengally was one of them. God almighty, what if he _caused_ that? Burned a whole town to the ground and killed forty-some-odd people just to, y'know, to throw me off his scent?"

"Looks like you've got another chance to ask him," Maggie said, looking at the photograph.

"You also have another chance to bring him in for it." They both started at the sound of Fraser's voice from the doorway. Looking up, they beheld Fraser and Ray both standing there, both eyeing Kowalski sympathetically, silently admitting him to their conclave of paternal loss.

"If he did cause forty-seven deaths just for the sake of faking his own, he has more than enough to answer for," Fraser asserted.

"Forty-seven don't even cover it," Ray said. "I think I know why he killed your old man, Kowalski."

"I'm listenin'."

"'Cause _my_ old man owed him money out his ass. He must have figured, find Ray Vecchio and he'd get to his father. But he found the wrong Ray Vecchio."

"You mean he killed Dad just 'cause I spent a year coverin' your ass?" Kowalski blurted in disbelief.

"His father loaned mine seventy-five big ones to start up a contracting company on the west side. But my old man took the money and bought the house with it instead. I didn't even find out about it until I went undercover. Of course, Pop was already dead by then, but...." Ray cast his eyes to the floor to hide the unspoken guilt he felt. He'd thought his own family safely out of reach with his father dead and the house burnt - but it hadn't occurred to him that Kowalski's masquerade would place _his_ family at risk from a vengeful loan shark-turned-hit man.

"But you said it yourself, Benny," he said finally. "Revenge isn't something you forget so easy."

"Indeed, Ray," Fraser nodded quietly. "I think it's time we dig further into the background of the Quebec North Shore Maritime Association and find out what we can about their prior activities and key personnel."

"What did you say this Pengally guy's up to nowadays?" Ray said to Maggie.

"In these parts he uses the name Samuel Hill," Maggie answered. "He's a suspected accomplice in the deaths of three Mounties in New Brunswick last June. He's also a known associate of this man, Galvin Shugg, who runs the haulage outfit that sent your two murder victims down to Chicago. Maybe the detachment in Moncton has something more for us to go on."

"This guy's really got it out for Canada, doesn't he?" Ray said morosely as he and Fraser turned back toward the doorway.

"I shudder to think what else will come back to haunt us by the time this is over," Fraser agreed. He nodded toward the hallway and sidled out, Ray at his heel.

When Maggie turned her face back on Kowalski, her grip on his hand tightened involuntarily. His head was bowed, and a tear glistened on his cheek. She reached up, ran her fingers through his slicked-back hair, and leaned closer to him. "Oh, Ray," she whispered, shaking her head. "Ray, I'm so sorry."

"What the hell for?" Kowalski swallowed hard. "It ain't your bad, Maggs. I mean....I mean, when Vecchio came back to town and took back his own life and his own name, I....I thought that was the end of it. Like I could get back to mine and get on with it. Then Dad got gunned down and I spent about eight years tryin' to find out why - why'd Dad have to die like that?"

"And after your trail went up in smoke, you thought you'd never get your answer. Well, now you have it. Ray, please, you've got to step carefully. This thing has gotten way too personal now for both you and Ben. And I don't want either of you to make the same mistake I almost did and step over a line you can't recross."

She reached forward to rub the tear from his cheek, in the same motion lifting his head so that his gaze met hers again. Then again she kissed him, and he kissed her, and together they made concrete of their resolve to find and punish Peregrine Pengally for what he'd done.

As they parted, Kowalski took a deep breath. "It's gonna be okay, Maggie, I promise. But damn it, I'm gonna get my hooks on Pengally this time, and when I do - _mmph!"_ He smacked his fist into his palm, startling her. "When I'm done with him, he'll be shakin' so bad he'll cause a tsunami!"

**********

_[A/n: Last verse and chorus of["The River Driver"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_VcNUgG2Yk) by Great Big Sea]_

The _McClellan_ \- a catamaran-hulled _Commissioner_ -class patrol boat of fifty-eight feet - drew no more than a metre of the St. Lawrence as it rested in a slip near the Quebec City RCMP detachment. The three-hour drive from Montreal had Fraser's back stiff and Ray's knees sore, but if Kowalski suffered any similar aches and pains, he was understandably mum about them. Maggie left well enough alone, but all the same she held in reserve her hopes that he wouldn't commit mayhem on Peregrine Pengally if and when they found him.

Amongst the more obvious quirks of the journey, neither Rondeau nor McTeague wore a standard uniform - by the time the rest of the crew arrived, they both had already donned diving suits and loaded scuba gear onto the boat in preparation to inspect the wreck site closely. McTeague manned the helm and demonstrated his keen sense for the water as he slowly but surely guided the _McClellan_ away from its moorings and into the main stream of the river. He kept a respectful distance from the numerous pleasure craft and shore-to-shore ferries plying the river, but to the huge freighters and cruise ships passing to and from the Great Lakes he gave an even wider berth. Welsh and Lerschen stood together on the foredeck, exchanging waves with the deck crew of a Canadian Coast Guard enforcer passing upstream.

For the first few miles, Fraser stood with Maggie and McTeague in the pilot house, but he lost count of the times he looked back astern toward Kowalski - and if Benton Fraser lost count of anything, it exceeded all forms of measurement. Presently he moved aft, sidled up beside his old friend and eyed him. Kowalski had scarcely budged: he stood very still, staring off to the starboard side at a spot of nothing on the river's surface. All of a sudden he looked very old, crotchety almost. Fraser had never seen him like this, and it frankly worried him.

"You know, Ray, when my father was killed," he began slowly, "I felt as if the sun had suddenly gone dark. I would have done anything, anything to bring the killer to justice, to bring a little light back into the world. Fortunately that turned out not to be very much, but...."

"Not very much?" Kowalski snorted. "Nah, Fraser, all you did was pull stakes outa the ice field, pack up your whole life and move into a big concrete canyon in a foreign country. Yeah, I'd say it didn't take you much at all."

"What I mean is that I could have done things all too differently. I could have taken Gerrard's life for my father's. I had at least two occasions to do it, but to this day I'm grateful that I was able to count on Ray Vecchio."

"At least you managed to nail Gerrard, though. I get my mitts on Pengally this time....I dunno what I'm gonna do."

"Does that scare you?"

"Does it scare _you?"_

"Admittedly, it does somewhat." Fraser nodded his head to one side. "I do have to confess I was rather concerned when I lost contact with you for so long. No one in the police department, or even any of your friends, seemed to know where you'd gotten off to. You know, it reminded me of my father's disappearance after my mother's death. I was only six years old, and I understood none of it. I didn't understand any of it until Muldoon resurfaced - "

"Yeah. Muldoon resurfaced, and, and you felt like it was up to you to take him down."

"Still, in spite of my personal feelings, it was not a vendetta. Muldoon was a criminal, and my job was to bring him in."

"Just like it was with Victoria?"

Fraser lowered his head and wished in vain that it wouldn't have occurred to Kowalski to bring that up. "That was different."

"The hell it was. You and I both know how personal it got to be, Victoria, Gerrard, Muldoon - "

"Yes, indeed, Ray, and now you find yourself in the same situation. I made my decisions. And I lived to regret my decision with Victoria. But when the time comes, you, and only you, will have to decide whether Peregrine Pengally dies by your hand or spends the rest of his life in prison to pay for his crimes."

Kowalski fell silent as he mulled over Fraser's words, looking away from him to hide his dampened eyes. He'd sworn to himself that he'd make the Penguin pay with his own life. Lord knew it seemed like Pengally had paid the ultimate price when a runaway oil train destroyed the small town of Lac-Mégantic the previous year. Yet here he was, alive and still committing capital crimes, and with him simmered a second chance to exact revenge.

Just like Victoria had attempted with Fraser.

The story rang in Kowalski's ears - how the devil woman had nearly destroyed Fraser and Vecchio single handed. Fraser had almost died from his best friend's own bullet, and Vecchio's career had almost died with him. Kowalski might never have had the chance to cover for Vecchio, meet Fraser, and irreversibly change his life - all because of one individual's lust for revenge.

Suddenly he caught his breath and drew himself up straight. It had dawned on him that his own father had been the victim of a revenge killing as much as mistaken identity. The line between family loyalty and a personal vendetta was as blurred as it was infinitesimally thin.

Was it really worth it?

Before the answer could present itself, the hatch on the starboard side of the _McClellan_ 's superstructure swung open and Ray poked his head out, peering aft. "Hey, Benny," he called. "If you guys have caught your limit, we got a radio call from ashore."

Promptly Fraser and Kowalski uprooted themselves from the deck and picked their way forward to the crew cabin: somehow they managed to reach the hatch without tripping on each other and falling overboard. Inside they found everyone not engaged in sailing the _McClellan,_ including Sergeant Prescott. On the forward bulkhead hung a large plasma screen, displaying a satellite view of the entire St. Lawrence watershed from Montreal to the gulf in high-resolution detail. A small, winking red dot marked the moving position of the _McClellan,_ a white X showed near the north shore a short distance from Quebec City, and a yellow X marked another spot further downstream.

"Our train's just about to Montreal," Maggie announced to the rest of the group. "Probably take the best part of two hours to get past Border Services. So we've only got a few hours ourselves to get this over with."

"If these guys had been kind enough to leave a marker buoy out there, it would've made our lives a damn sight easier," Welsh commented.

"But you have a rough idea of where the salvage vessel was anchored," Fraser reminded him.

"A rough idea's about all, Fraser. Without any advanced detection equipment on hand, it could still turn out to be an awfully time-consuming search."

"Well, I used to know an old harbour pilot down on Lake Champlain." Lerschen spoke quietly and distantly from his leaning position against the port-side bulkhead. "He liked to say that if you want to find someone, use your eyes."

"You were a sailor?" Fraser enquired with interest.

"Once upon a time," Lerschen smiled with what could only be pleasant memories. "I was captain of my own boat about twelve years back. Didn't last long - only had her for about half a season - but it was a good run with the motley crew I had. Sure ain't like to forget it any time soon."

Welsh smiled slightly and turned to point at the screen. "That white X is where the tug and salvage vessel were anchored, as close as I can remember."

"And the yellow one?" Fraser asked.

"That's the position the salvage team from the QNSMA gave to the German embassy," Prescott said. "As you can see, there's a discrepancy of over thirty kilometres between the two - it's too big to ignore."

"Well, how do we know the salvage ships were in the right place?" Ray asked.

Welsh turned back on Lerschen with an eyebrow raised. "Peter?"

Lerschen responded to the raised eyebrow with a pensive look of his own. "I only know what Erich told me, but let's hope it was enough."

"We're listening," Maggie said, crossing her arms.

"Well," Lerschen began, sucking in a deep breath. _"Kapitanleutnant_ Thomas Franckheim was the skipper of the _U-896_ from the spring of nineteen forty-three onward. By the time of the St. Lawrence sortie, he'd made eight consecutive war patrols. Everybody on board could see the signs of strain on him. He should have been rotated out long before then, and he even asked a couple of times to be relieved and sent home for a rest and new construction. But between the snorkel tests and the rate of U-boat losses by that stage of the war, the _Kriegsmarine_ would have none of it.

"The _U-896_ was one of the first boats to use the snorkel in service and it was considered ideal for the St. Lawrence operation. Erich was quartermaster of the watch the night she went down, August twenty-fourth, nineteen forty-four. They were within thirty miles of Quebec City, and the fog was like the inside of a jewelry box. Franckheim felt safe snorkeling in those conditions, especially since it gave him a few extra metres of keel depth. But it was apparent he couldn't care less whether they survived the operation or not. His periscope observations were irregular, and the last one he made was in the middle of a fog bank.

"It hadn't even been three minutes since when the snorkel struck the keel of a coastal freighter lying at anchor. The shaft broke clean, and the aft end of the boat partially flooded and disabled all the propulsion systems."

"Left her dead in the water," Welsh said.

"Completely," Lerschen nodded. "She was on the bottom in only about a minute. The freighter raised the alarm and left the survivors no choice but to abandon ship. They gathered in the conning tower, but Captain Franckheim chose to stay behind, and only a handful of the survivors made it to fresh air."

"You said the _U-896_ went down near La Malbaie," Fraser recalled, pointing at a spot on the screen close to the white X. "Did the freighter report its position at the time of the collision?"

"It must have," Prescott nodded, "if it expected coastal patrols to respond to the alarm. National archives in Ottawa should have something in the wartime Merchant Marine logs. I'll contact headquarters and get them on it."

"Very good, Fenton," Fraser said, nodding an approving nod. "Good thinking."

"Thank you, sir."

"Oh, good grief," Ray muttered under his breath toward Kowalski. "First Benton and now Fenton? It's almost like we're in Canada or somethin'."

"Just don't call him 'Fenny', whatever you do," Kowalski muttered back.

"You know what doesn't make any kind of sense?" Lerschen resumed with his face twisted in bafflement. "What's the point of telling the news services, the German embassy and the Microsoft Corporation all about finding the wreck? I mean, you'd think cold-blooded murderers who are dabbling in human trafficking would want to keep the rest of the world in the dark."

"You certainly would, unless they were looking to keep up appearances," Welsh said. "Tell the rest of the world just what you want them to think and they're that less likely to get their curiosity riled up."

"And anyone who does get curious pays the ultimate price for it," Fraser muttered. He'd spent the entire journey resisting the urge to slap the sides of his head in the hopes of jarring loose an answer to his most burning question. _How in God's name had Victoria gotten involved with this enterprise, and why did she have to be killed?_

Welsh faced the screen, pointing at the white X. "You can see the channel narrows there - it's only about eight miles from shore to shore. The water can't be more than a hundred feet deep."

"True." Lerschen nodded again. "If she'd sunk further downstream, we wouldn't have it nearly as easy."

"Easy?" Kowalski's face twisted. "You call this easy?"

"Compared to what we'd be up against if the boat was even just a mile to the northeast...." Fraser said with a flourish. "This is a slice of angel food."

His face remained perfectly straight-laced as he regarded the others. All four of the Americans showed him blank stares of confusion, and even Maggie looked dubious. Prescott, finally, was the one to lean over and drop his voice a note.

"Umm, all due respect, sir, I think you mean a 'piece of cake'."

"Ah, yes, right you are. Thank you, Fenton."

"Of course, sir."

"I stand corrected," Fraser said, raising his voice again. "This, lady and gentlemen, will be a piece of cake."

Vecchio and Kowalski stared at each other as if Fraser had just donned a clown face and a giant red wig. Welsh glanced at Lerschen, but merely gave him a dismissive shake of his head. Maggie shifted her feet, clearly trying not to laugh: then finally she broke the awkward silence. "Well, thanks for not forgetting about me, bro. But if Mr. Wichmann remembered that night clearly and correctly, we'd better be ready. We'll be on that spot in less than an hour at our present speed."

"Ready for _what?"_ Kowalski was in the midst of spreading out his arms questioningly when Prescott struck out and caught him by the right wrist, preventing him from punching out a navigation monitor. "I mean, yeah, sure we got all the time in the world to go over the whole riverbed with a fine-toothed comb and hope to God we find whatever it is we're lookin' for before the boat drifts away."

Again all eyes fell on Fraser, who was rooting about in one of the pouches of his Sam Browne. When his hand reappeared it bore a thick and complicated multitool, from which he unfolded a weird-looking steel implement not to be found in the average Swiss Army knife.

"What the hell is that?" Already Ray dreaded the answer.

"It's a fine-toothed comb, Ray," Fraser said helpfully. "Waterproof, stainless steel, and able to probe bottom sediment under a current of three and a half knots."

Prescott tried with limited success to stifle a laugh. Ray shook his head, chortling. Leave it to Fraser to reach his mid-fifties without picking up on a fistful of everyday idioms.

"One of these days, Ben," Maggie said with a smirk. "One of these days we'll have to sit you down with some drug-induced fan fiction."

"Well, I'm sorry, Maggie, but I fail to see the relevance to our objective," Fraser frowned, rubbing his earlobe. "Although, you know, it does remind me of an amusing story about a seal, a slingshot, and an Inuit hunter with a comb stuck in his chin...."

"Benny?"

"Yes, Ray?"

"That's enough."

"Understood."

 

The sun no longer cast the shadows of immense freighters passing south of the _McClellan_ 's course when Fraser next entered the pilot house. For the past couple of hours McTeague had kept a relaxed watch on the helm, but he'd become perceptibly alert and it had nothing to do with the upriver traffic. With one brief gesture he caught Fraser's attention before spinning in his seat and pointing off to the port side.

"Sir, if you're interested in some background on the Quebec North Shore Maritime Association, there's some of it lying right over there." He motioned toward the half-sunken hulk of a shore-to-shore ferry resting in a cove on the shore of a small, uninhabited island. Down by the stern, it was a little less than a hundred metres long and its bow and stern hatches were tightly sealed shut. Scaffolds and canvas covered its superstructure, and at this distance, with the aid of his old yet still reliable spyglass, Fraser could see the canvas sheets draped over the opposite side of the ferry.

"Is that one of their ongoing projects?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, that's the _Lady of Cobequid,"_ McTeague said, pointing at the hulk again. "After the Confederation Bridge opened, she was reassigned from Prince Edward Island to the St. Lawrence passages. Back in two thousand eight, she had a shaft seal failure during a shore-to-shore crossing and started taking on water. If they hadn't been able to beach her off of the Ile de Perousé there, we wouldn't be seeing her today."

2008, Fraser recalled with an abrupt pang of loss - the same year Diefenbaker had died. He glanced aft, half expecting to see the spectre of his beloved companion nosing into a ghostly bag of Doritos on the afterdeck. Then he blinked hard and refocused, raising the spyglass again to give the _Lady of Cobequid_ another once-over. "And she's been there ever since?"

"Pretty much, yes, sir. I guess the QNSMA offered the owners a banging buck to take the ship off their hands and make an excursion boat out of her. Last couple of years now they've been going at the restoration and repair work, but you can see how far they've gotten."

"Not very far at all," Fraser said slowly, nodding. "Strange that they would take on two projects of such significant scale at the same time."

"Could be that's why they moved the salvage of the _U-896_ to the back burner," McTeague offered.

"It's a possibility. How far are we from the wreck site?"

"Won't be long now, sir. In fact Rondeau and I should start getting geared up." Leaning to one side, McTeague bent his head toward the accommodation stepladder descending down to the crew cabin. "Mr. Welsh!"

Presently Welsh hauled himself up the ladder and stood up straight beside McTeague, clapping him on the shoulder. "Getting warm, are we?"

"If you wouldn't mind taking the helm, we'd be glad of the guidance."

"My pleasure, Constable." Heads nodded and McTeague slid off the raised seat. After he had gone below, Welsh mounted up behind the wheel and turned to Fraser with half a smile. "Not to worry, Fraser. Old salts like me still know our ships."

"I'm unconcerned, sir, at least as it pertains to your navigational talents." Fraser rubbed his eyebrow with a thumbnail and squinted. "What does concern me, however, is the chain fragments I discovered alongside Mr. Wichmann. The effects of corrosion and heavy stress caused them to separate. If that ferry hasn't budged since she was beached...."

"I know what you mean, but look at the traffic volume out here. There's no way they could have already raised the _U-896_ unnoticed. Stay cool, Fraser. We'll find out before you can say yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Molson."

Fraser smiled thinly, but he wished nonetheless that he could share in some of Welsh's reassurance.

 

At the end of the next three hours, Welsh had to admit he was wavering - not just from the effort of holding the _McClellan_ in one place, but from the fruitless hunt Rondeau and McTeague had been conducting at the bottom of the river. What the St. Lawrence lacked in depth at this spot, it made up for in breadth and water murked with the chemical deposits from countless ships. The safety cord spooled around a winch on the foredeck of the _McClellan_ was almost fully deployed as the two divers methodically searched the bottom for the wreckage of the long-dead submarine, using high-candela underwater searchlights. Fraser had made the point to the others early on that decompression stops would be vitally necessary on the way up, lest the two younger Mounties succumb to the bends within seconds of reaching the surface. As the time crawled relentlessly by, he felt his own skin starting to prickle nervously - but at least his own patience still rested well within its limits after almost an hour of Kowalski pacing back and forth across the foredeck.

Ray emerged from the crew cabin with a little black cloud of annoyance hanging over him as he picked his way forward, clinging to the railing on the side of the boat to avoid falling overboard. "Hey, Kowalski," he called out acidly. "Did anybody ever tell you that you rock the boat about as good as a bunch of clownfish?"

"What's it to you, Vecchio?" Kowalski retorted without looking at him.

"You really wanna know, next time you go downstairs to take a leak, get a noseful of what you're doin' to the toilet. What do you think this is, _Pirates of the Caribbean?"_

"Calm down, Ray," Fraser said. "The constables have been on the bottom for over two hours. They have roughly twenty minutes of air left, ergo they have to surface any moment now and we'll be able to turn for shore."

"Yeah, and what if they got eaten by a, by a kraken an hour ago and we don't know a thing about it?" Kowalski tossed up his hands.

Ray snorted cynically. "Well, that's just silly, Ray," he said, pointedly mocking Fraser. "Last kraken they sighted in these parts was - oh, I don't know, what do you think, Benny? Back around the time the gods of ancient Greece disappeared?"

"Possibly." Fraser ignored Ray's sarcasm and stood up straight at the sight of the safety cord coming taut. "Maggie!"

"Got it," Maggie replied. Standing up from her perch on a capstan near the bows, she picked up a rolled chain-and-bar ladder and tossed it over the forward edge of the deck. She knelt beside it and ventured a peek at the surface of the water just in time to see Rondeau's masked, hooded head burst through the mass of bubbles forming between the hulls.

Sharply, Rondeau yanked his air regulator from his mouth and tightly clutched the safety cord, but he made no move for the ladder. "We'll be a few minutes yet, ma'am," he said to Maggie. "We got something. Not really sure what yet, but I'll signal you when we're ready to send it up."

"Carry on," Maggie nodded. As Rondeau ducked back under, she turned to Fraser and the Rays with a piqued frown. "'Send it up'?" she repeated. "More likely that thing will pull us right under."

"Perhaps things aren't what they seem, Maggie." Fraser dropped to one knee beside the winch and awaited the signal, moistening his lower lip with his tongue. He was no more certain what his comrades had found on the river bottom than he was about the condition of the wreck: but whatever they were thinking of dragging back to the surface, he could but trust to luck that Maggie's prediction was only good for face value.

The answer was imminent before he knew it as Maggie turned again and waved. "Haul away, Ben!" she called. At once Fraser reversed the winch and engaged, reeling in the safety cord and whatever was attached to it: after a few moments he felt the bows lurch downward as the winch took up the load.

Still, the _McClellan_ remained well afloat and more or less level. Rondeau and McTeague stayed in the water and paid the cord upward to relieve some of the load on the winch: at the same time Kowalski edged forward and knelt on the other side from Maggie, half mad with curiosity. He glanced up at her with a wry remark on his mind, but once he saw her intense focus on the upcoming discovery, he kept his mouth shut.

"Hold it!" Rondeau shouted, waving his hand. A poor second elapsed before Fraser stopped the winch and Kowalski bent over the forward edge of the deck.

The other end of the safety cord was wound and knotted around a large, cylindrical and hollow chunk of metal that showed few signs of deterioration. An inch or two of bottom sediment rested inside it. Kowalski couldn't make heads or tails of it, and judging by the look on her face, neither could Maggie. McTeague, however, broke their attention rather abruptly as he flung his flippers up onto the deck and almost hit Kowalski squarely in the face before he started up the ladder.

Quickly Kowalski recovered and reached down alongside Maggie to grab McTeague's hands and pull him, and then Rondeau, back on board. Though Fraser would just as soon have both of them go below to rest and recover from their labours, neither diver-Mountie seemed to have so much as a coffee break on his mind: already McTeague had shucked his diving gear and taken up position to drag the heavy piece of flotsam on board.

Together, Kowalski and McTeague muscled the odd-looking hunk of metal onto the _McClellan_ 's foredeck and untied the cord, taking advantage of its cylindrical shape to roll it toward the pilot house. Rondeau was not far behind: he paused only to slip off his flippers and remove his breathing apparatus before he hurried down the deck behind them. Together with everybody but Welsh and Prescott, they gathered around to study the metal fragment. It was fractured at one end, but its other end was circumferentially slotted with a perforated nub in the center.

"This is the biggest piece we could find," Rondeau reported. "There are several other bits of flotsam and jetsam scattered around the riverbed. But this is the biggest, and I figure, the most identifiable."

"Yeah, the only problem is, who's gonna identify it?" Ray grunted.

As if in answer to his question, a hand lay gently on his shoulder from behind. He turned, frowning, shuffling aside as Lerschen stepped into the circle, bending over to scrutinise the piece of debris intensely.

"It's the snorkel head," he announced in a faraway tone.

"Come again?" Maggie said.

"The snorkel. See how the shaft is fractured at one end? That's where it would have broken off on impact with the freighter. I can remember Erich telling me that a couple of the earliest snorkel boats participated in the Battle of the St. Lawrence, but the _U-896_ was the only one to make it this far upriver - and definitely the only one to collide with a surface ship."

"So we got the right spot anyway," Kowalski said.

"Then where's the rest of the boat?" Ray asked, putting forth the question on everyone's mind.

All eyes turned to Rondeau, who was already shaking his head, shrugging with palms outstretched. "There's no sign of her. We stayed down as long as we had air. Combed every square foot of the riverbed we could see, but that debris is all we found."

Fraser, nodding his head once, was next to speak the chilling realisation that had just come over every warm body on the _McClellan._

"They've already raised her," he said ominously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this chapter has adequately answered some of the questions from the earliest parts of the fic. But finish your popcorn - it's gonna be one hell of a ride from here on out.
> 
> (And props back at ya if you caught the Firefly reference! ;))


	21. Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, DueSers....RayV's big deep dark secret is imminent. As a precautionary measure, I've hidden all the otters.
> 
> (If you catch the 'Men With Brooms' reference, though, please do note it.)

"How the hell could they have brought the damn thing up already?" Ray waved his hands spastically at the plasma screen in the _McClellan_ 's crew cabin. "I mean, if we got two possible spots, and there sure as hell isn't anything here...."

"We're definitely on the mark, Detective," Prescott told him. "Word came back from Ottawa while we were waiting. A couple of civilian researchers found the position report from the coastal patrol that responded to the U-boat alarm. And in water this shallow, if the _U-896_ had gotten much further away, we've got only some wayward fishing boat to blame."

"Yeah, well, you said it yourself, sir," Ray continued ranting, this time in Welsh's direction. "The traffic's so thick they couldn't even get a rowboat through here without being seen!"

"I also said there was a tugboat anchored there when we made the return trip," Welsh reminded him with one of his familiar lieutenantly scowls. "Now tell me, Vecchio, what do tugboats do to justify their very existence?"

"It's still one hell of a sleight-of-hand," Kowalski remarked.

Welsh turned on him, scowl gone, curious twist of the face in its stead. "Kowalski, do my ears deceive me, or are you and Vecchio actually agreeing on something?"

"Well, you got any ideas how they coulda pulled it off?"

"Only one way they could have done it," Prescott said thoughtfully. "Supposedly the wreck was still in mostly one piece, so it's just possible two ships could have lugged it along underwater, if only under cover of darkness. But _where?_ There's nothing for miles on either shore to raise any suspicion of clandestine shipfitting."

A look of heavy cogitation deepened the creases on Fraser's face, and his eye wandered from the white X marking the wreck site to the small island they had passed a few miles to the west.

"Ray, any hunches?" he enquired.

A short but frustrated sigh escaped ahead of Ray's answer. "Why? What do you think I am, the Hunchback of Notre Dame?"

"Well, no, although my grandmother once introduced me to a tribal elder who bore a remarkable resemblance to Quasimodo. But given your fondness of playing hunches, I was rather hoping I could borrow one from you."

"You have something you want to share with the rest of the class, Fraser?" Welsh queried.

"I think most of the rest of the class already does." Fraser pointed at the Ile de Perousé on the screen. "According to Constable McTeague, the _Lady of Cobequid_ ferry ran aground on this island several years ago and hasn't budged since. Are you familiar with it, Fenton?"

"Only with the less than inspired progress the QNSMA is making with it," Prescott shrugged.

Fraser nodded, and his tongue briefly protruded from slightly smiling lips. "Then perhaps it's not the _Lady of Cobequid_ they're progressing with."

The electricity that suddenly filled the air in the crew cabin could have charged a laptop computer in a matter of seconds. Maggie in particular, her eyebrows rising in unison with her head, looked much less amused than she had earlier - not only could she see that Fraser was dead serious, she could see the connexion he'd just made as plainly as she could see him standing across the cabin.

"Okay," she said finally. "Let's say you're right, Ben...."

"Why even bother assuming otherwise?" Ray mumbled toward Kowalski and Welsh.

"....what do you propose we do about it?" Maggie finished.

Fraser was in the midst of drawing in his breath to respond when Kowalski jumped in ahead of him, grinning for the first time since the revelation about Peregrine Pengally. "Know what I think, Fraser?"

"No, Stan, I haven't the slightest idea."

"I think the _Wailin' Yankee_ is gonna set sail again."

**********

"You call _that_ the _Wailing Yankee?"_ Ray whispered in disbelief, pointing at a nondescript barge bobbing alongside a pier on the Port-Saint-Jean waterfront. To him, the barge looked like it had started its life hauling trash down the Chicago River toward the depths of Lake Michigan.

"Well, it ain't the _Queen Mary,_ and that's a fact," Kowalski whispered back, heavy on sarcasm.

Together with Fraser and Lerschen, they were huddled in a small shanty on the dock that itself had begun life as a river pilot's shelter, but had been occupied and renovated by a poutine vendor. The pier occupied roughly a mile of the south shore of the St. Lawrence, about three miles southeast of the Ile de Perousé. They'd been able to make out the island's silhouette in the last light of the day as they each infiltrated the waterfront one at a time, posing variously as longshoremen, dock workers, or in Fraser's case, a safety inspector. If there were members of the smuggling element working the waterfront, they'd coolly avoided arousing suspicion by not turning him away.

Fraser either ignored or took no notice of the give-and-take between Rays: he'd been evolving a scheme to sneak out to the island and find out if his guess about the _Lady of Cobequid_ was correct. He could be fairly certain none of his friends would be too fond of the idea, but in the little time they had left, they had no other recourse.

"You know, Fraser, this is a nightmare waiting to happen," Lerschen muttered, serious-faced.

"You aren't even aware of the plan yet." Even as Fraser spoke he couldn't help wondering whether or not that was true.

"That's not what I mean. No matter how ready for sea these guys are, they aren't nearly ready enough."

"How do you figure that?" Kowalski enquired.

"They don't have a snowball's chance in hell to break out into the Gulf and the North Atlantic without being detected. You can't even take a leak off a sailboat nowadays without naval sonar equipment picking it up."

"Unless you operate someplace where nobody expects to find you," Fraser said. "Needless to say, we don't know their destination. But as Stan and I are well aware, the Northwest Passages afford enough room to manoeuvre, and at that latitude, the thermal layers of the water make submarines much more difficult to hear."

"True, but even if they don't know it, being detected is the least of their problems," Lerschen said. "The _U-896_ 's test depth was two hundred and thirty metres when she was built. But after all these years, there's no way. No matter how much repair work they've done on the pressure hull, she can't go anywhere near that deep without a fatal leak - or worse."

Dark, heavy silence descended as the other three contemplated his exhort. They'd seen enough submarine movies and explored enough of the _U-505_ exhibit to know that any submarine, even in its fighting prime, could only go so deep before being crushed like a soda can by water pressure. Even with the hull fully restored, it was impossible to calculate accurately how deep the _U-896_ could go without taking its operators and their cargo - human or otherwise - to a freezing, watery grave.

"Well, then I vote we come up with a plan yesterday - like _before_ we found out about this part," Ray mumbled, shifting his posture uncomfortably. "And my foot has gone to sleep from huddling in here."

Kowalski lifted his head just far enough to peer through the darkness that interceded between the window of the shanty and the riverfront. "Okay, both me and Vecchio got guns, so...."

"I beg your pardon?" The look on Fraser's face was singularly incensed.

Chortling, Ray shook his head in a chastising gesture. "You just had to bring it up, didn't you?"

"Well, if I run into the Penguin, I'm damn well gonna be ready for him," Kowalski growled.

Fraser glared. "Stan, carrying a firearm across an international border is a serious violation of federal, let alone local - "

"Benny, _can it,"_ Ray hissed. "You can arrest us when this is over, but first we gotta finish it. Any ideas?"

Inclining his head, Fraser lifted no more than one eye above the level of the windowsill. "Ray, do you remember the first time we worked alongside Buck Frobisher?"

"Oh, you mean all that to-do with Geiger-Counter? 'Cause if you're thinking of taking another knife in the leg before you take on another four hundred pounds of defecating menace...."

"Not exactly what I had in mind, but as far as infiltrating Geiger's hideout, I find that incident rather inspiring right now."

Ray scoffed again. "Fraser, there's three miles of open water between here and that island, okay? We're not gonna get in there under anyone's noses with just a canoe and a kerosene lantern."

"Well, uh, maybe unless their noses look anythin' like yours," Kowalski jibed.

 _"Fellas...."_ Fraser muttered, his tone considerably more intense than before. "Allow me to clarify that a canoe wasn't my first choice of watercraft."

"Hey, guys!" Lerschen whispered, suddenly and urgently tapping Fraser's arm. "Guys, take a look at this!" He made a jerking motion with his head toward the wide patch of pavement adjoining the dock: at once Fraser ducked to avoid being illuminated by a set of high-beam headlights. He crouched back below the windowsill and squinted through a crack in the boards on the side of the shanty. Ray, however, was more daring: he stayed to one side of the window and ventured only an inch's peek through it, but he and Fraser caught the same view from both points.

Two short-haul trailer trucks had just pulled down the blacktop and up alongside the dock, toting behind them a pair of freight containers. No sooner had their parking brakes snapped on than several of the dock workers had surrounded them to disengage the lockdowns on the containers so they could be extracted from the trailers. Though years had gone by since Fraser could read the lettering on the containers at this light level, most of the dockworkers wore miner-style battery-powered head lamps: in their illumination, he couldn't miss the bright green and white placards identifying a toxic or poisonous commodity.

"You seein' this, Benny?" Ray whispered.

"I am indeed, Ray." Fraser's voice, though hoarse, held a tangible undertone of excitement. "Last time we saw those two containers was on the train a few days ago."

"Must be their last load," Kowalski muttered.

"Or close to it. It's also our chance to kill two caribou with one cartridge. Let's go."

**********

The barge reached the _Lady of Cobequid_ an hour later under the cover of darkness, clouds, and a thickening fog. Swinging around the ferry's stern to its inland side, it avoided running aground right alongside only by virtue of its shallower draught. Even at its higher and dryer bow, the _Lady of Cobequid_ 's waterline was a good three or four metres deeper than it had been before the incident that left it crippled. The barge eased up to the ferry's forecastle and came to rest against the rubber bumpers dangling down the side: two of its four-man crew secured it with mooring lines whilst the other two received hoist cables from above.

The hoist made four trips from the barge to the ferry's foredeck - two for the containers, two for a pair of large pallets loaded with provisions, parts, and fuel drums. As they watched the second pallet being hoisted up into the darkness, the two barge men each sensed the same puzzlement from the other, but there was no use voicing it: they'd already been discouraged numerous times from even peeking through a porthole. There was little for them to do besides motor out to the grounded ferry late at night, make their delivery, and scoot back to the riverfront to get paid. Several minutes after the barge had dropped its lines and vanished around the _Lady of Cobequid_ 's bow, the three men manning the hoist, having secured it and the loads, started back toward the main passenger cabin.

"Is it just me, or did they send over a few extra oil drums?" one of the deck hands remarked to his companions.

The hoist operator shrugged in response. "Boss must have ordered some extra fuel. Keeps sayin' he'll be ready for sea in only a few days. He must mean it this time."

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm not lookin' forward to hand-pumping fuel out of two-hundred-litre drums till my arms fall off." This from the second deck hand, unconsciously rubbing his upper arm.

"Well, hey, at least you could claim disability then." The hoist operator meaningfully nudged him in the arm just before the three of them single-filed to enter the passageway on the starboard side.

None of them stuck around to see the lid on one of the oil drums pop loose. Hidden from view of the ferry's bridge by the two freight containers, Fraser lifted his eyeline just above the edge of the drum and peered around in a 360-degree circle with the lid still perched on top of his head. Then he quickly and quietly clambered out of the drum and replaced the lid, tapping on two other drums close to him.

"Ray," he whispered. "Stan. All clear."

Ray painfully stood upright in his drum and bared his teeth at Fraser in more of a grimace than a grin. "Just when I thought I didn't have any suits left for you to ruin."

"Well, I'm sorry, Ray, but I'm afraid I wasn't able to procure any protective gear on such short notice." Fraser spoke quite seriously as he crept over to a large wooden crate, removed its unfastened padlock, and lifted the lid. Lerschen sat up glancing furtively around all the while, as if he expected to see an ancient hooded figure clutching a scythe in one bony hand and Fraser's shoulder in the other.

"I think we're safe, Peter," Fraser said in a low tone.

"Forgive me for not wholeheartedly agreeing with you," Lerschen muttered as he heaved himself out of the crate. "Reminds me of an old girlfriend of mine who snuck on board my boat none too differently once. You want to talk about the Overly Attached Girlfriend...."

"Yeah, let's not and say we did," Kowalski mumbled. He scuttled to one end of the nearer container and peeked around it to see if any heavily armed security guards were approaching. Satisfied that the foredeck was clear, he rejoined his companions and nodded an all-clear to Fraser, awaiting the next step.

"All right," Fraser nodded. "Time we get below and see what we can see." And with that, he led by tiptoe to the nearest deck hatch.

From the hatchway, a steep stepladder descended to a stowage compartment empty of its usual mooring lines, tools, and spare parts. One one side of the compartment, a low steel door opened onto a narrow catwalk spanning the width of the vehicle deck, roughly twenty metres above it. Surrounded - and concealed - by the overhead framework and the electric floodlights ringing the inside, the intruders tiptoed into a side-by-side line on the catwalk, listening to the indistinct echoing of voices throughout the cavernous vehicle deck. They found that they could owe the indistinction to the clattering of tools and the lapping of water inside the ferry - about six metres of it, covering the entire deck from stem to stern, level with the water of the river outside. Then all eyes were drawn undividedly to the midst of the water-filled vehicle deck.

The vehicle occupying the middle of the space was not a vehicle the _Lady of Cobequid_ had ever been designed to embark. Fraser dropped into a slow, dreamlike crouch and felt all the air expel from his lungs at the sight. Eyes wide, unblinking and disbelieving, he let them roam over the incredible view below. Perfectly still in the water lay a battered and bent, long and lean, small and slender ship: its superstructure was a structure of legend, oblong-shaped, multi-levelled and with a sharp ridge of steel encircling its topmost level. No vessel but a World War II-era Type IXC U-boat could ever be identified with that structure.

"Oh, my," Fraser murmured in amazement.

"Christcrackers," Kowalski whispered.

"My holy German oath," Lerschen mumbled, shaking his head. "I never would have thought it was possible."

"And yet there floats the _U-896,_ seventy years after she went down." Fraser held his breath, all but mesmerised by the sight. The ancient submarine had a slight list to port - perhaps the better to fit through the _Lady of Cobequid_ 's stern lock when the time came. The deck cannon and flak guns were still in place, though they didn't appear to have been touched since the salvage. Only a few men moved back and forth along the upper deck: it appeared mostly intact, but the conning tower had no lustre at all - evidently scrubbing and painting was at the bottom of the priority list. Or was it? Fraser let his eyes roam over the parts of the boat's pressure hull that were visible above the water line. They were not only in much better cosmetic condition, but they looked strangely plump.

"What I wouldn't give to know what they did with the remains of those dead sailors," Lerschen muttered through gritted teeth.

Frowning, Fraser poked his head between two steel frame bars to get a better look. "They must be working around the clock to get her ready for sea. Correct me if I'm wrong, Peter, but isn't she considerably girthier than the _U-505?"_

"You know, you're right," Lerschen nodded slowly. "It looks like they've built about three extra layers of steel onto the pressure hull.... _I'll be - !"_ He broke off, open-mouthed, and dropped to his hands and knees, leaning as far as he dared over the edge of the catwalk. "I could _swear_ those are AIP blisters they've added!"

"AIP?" Kowalski repeated. "What the hell's that?"

"Air-independent propulsion. Remember I mentioned it when we visited Harding last week? It's the new thing in submarine propulsion - it may even replace nuclear reactors one of these days. With a power plant like that, a non-nuclear sub can stay submerged for weeks at a time and not have to come up for air. And it's quiet, too, it's _damned_ quiet. That solves two of their main problems right off."

"One can only imagine the resources they must have had to get this far in only a year," Fraser commented.

"Not with Pengally on the payroll," Kowalski growled. "You have any idea how connected that guy is? All he had to do was, was stand in front of a research lab in Siberia and clear his throat."

He turned his attention back to the _U-896_ just in time to catch another movement on its upper deck, the movement of a short but stocky character marching slowly yet deliberately around the aft end of the conning tower. He proceeded forward along the side on a collision course with two other men who were starting aft: his mere appearance incited them to jerk to a halt and let him pass.

Fraser glanced at Kowalski just long enough to see the flash of anger in his eye, but his attention was summarily drawn to his friend's beckoning hand. "Fraser, gimme your spyglass!" Kowalski whispered intensely.

Without arguing, Fraser passed the spyglass over, hoping in earnest that Kowalski wouldn't fumble and drop it in the water. The detective leaned over the edge of the catwalk and aimed the spyglass at the three men talking in front of the _U-896_ 's conning tower, gaining a much better view of the gathering as the short fellow gestured upward with the barrel of a submachine gun. None of them could make out what was being said, but only one of them could make out who was saying it.

"Speak of the devil," Kowalski snarled under his breath. "He just appeared. Fraser, that's that baby-eating bastard Pengally! Vecchio, cover me, I'm gonna - "

 _"Stan, wait!"_ Fraser exhorted. He grabbed Kowalski by the arm, just barely in time to prevent him from standing up and giving away their position. "We've got no backup close by and no means of getting off this ship. We can't afford to sip our sand right away."

"Sip our sand? That any relation to 'tip our hand'?"

"It very well may be," Fraser admitted.

"So what do we do now, then?" Lerschen asked, eyeing Fraser.

"Well, we still have to catch them in the act of smuggling human beings and other valuables beyond an international border," Fraser replied. "We'll have to try to contact Maggie and send for the Coast Guard. Ray, could I perhaps have the use of your phone flash to send a Morse code message?"

Ray didn't answer. Fraser murmured his name again and looked past Kowalski, then past Lerschen. _"Ray!"_ he whispered again, tersely. He looked over his own shoulder, only for his dread to take solid form.

Ray wasn't even with them.

**********

_"You know, I always thought duty was something you get paid to do. This is more like voluntary stupidity."_

_"Well, I'm sure there are some people who think that's what good deeds are, Ray."_

_"Well, aren't they?"_

_"I don't know. I've never thought about it."_

Ray quietly scoffed to himself as he thought about it, and thought and thought again and again. He remembered that conversation with Fraser as if they'd just had it over breakfast that morning, even though they'd had it nineteen years ago in waist-deep water pouring from a bank vault sprinkler. Maybe "stupidity" wasn't the right word: maybe "foolishness" hit closer to the mark. Semantics notwithstanding, probing the _Lady of Cobequid_ 's superstructure all alone was in the same league as going undercover in Las Vegas as the doppelganger of a ruthless mob guy, an act of utter insanity he still didn't know how he'd survived. Then he remembered the objective of his solitary hunt, a fifteen-year-old girl who he now knew was destined for some unspeakable debauchery over distant horizons that he had no desire to dwell on. And her mother, who likely didn't even know yet that her father had been murdered to keep this abhorrence a secret.

The dark, deserted, and dust-filled passenger cabin had yielded nothing but allergic reactions Ray barely kept under control. He crept aft past the restrooms, the concession stand, and the sealed-off stairwell leading to the vehicle deck, keeping a constant watch over his shoulder as he passed into the empty cafeteria. A dim light caught his eye from the companionway beyond the galley. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and continued aft.

By now nearly on tiptoe, Ray moved sternward along the companionway: it was not just stealth that made him light on his feet, but trying to prevent either of his knees from cricking and giving him away. As deserted as the _Lady of Cobequid_ 's upper works seemed, the string of light bulbs dangling from the overhead made him wary. They wouldn't even be strung out, let alone lit, if nobody was up here to take advantage of their dim illumination. Any of the myriad compartments could be occupied, and Ray was in no mood to encounter any of the ship's denizens without backup.

Main passenger cabin, lounge, cafeteria, officers' quarters. So far, much ventured, nothing gained. Ray felt the finger of doubt poking him hard in the shoulder: was it really worth the risk he'd taken? Fraser and Kowalski had no idea where he was. For once, Fraser was the only one of the company who could legally use a firearm - not that that would stop Kowalski from opening fire if necessary. Welsh, Maggie, and the rest of the Mounties had to maintain a discreet distance and God only knew how long it would take them to come running when called for. He was completely on his own, and he had only himself to blame if something went awry.

Entertaining himself with thoughts like these, Ray suddenly found himself at the end of the companionway, facing a watertight door leading to the next compartment. He pushed it ajar, wincing as its hinges squeaked much louder than desired. But the hinges weren't the only thing that squeaked.

At once Ray went for the gun in his hip pocket and held it ready as he eased into the compartment. It was even darker than the companionway, but as his eyes adjusted, he discerned even further proof that the restoration of the _Lady of Cobequid_ was little more than a cover for that of the _U-896._ Broken bunk beds ringed the interior of the compartment, and the floor was littered with unidentifiable flotsam. A broken and buckled wooden housing ran the length of the compartment, and just enough light filtered through the doorway for Ray to see the frayed rudder cable beneath the housing. Rather quickly it dawned on Ray that he was in the crew's berthing compartment at the far aft end of the superstructure. He sighed under his breath, acknowledging that he should have started here.

The heavy, rapid breathing he heard from somewhere within the compartment underlined his error. He followed the sound, listening as it changed from heavy breathing to high-pitched whimpering. With his free hand he dipped into his jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone. As he drew nearer the source of the small, distressed voice, he turned on the flash on the back of the phone and aimed it at one of the bunk beds before him, eliciting a squeaking cry.

Immediately he lowered the gun and took one long step before dropping onto one knee. He laid the weapon aside and reached out to grip the arm of the short, dark-haired and dirty-faced girl lying and shaking in the bunk.

 _"Shhhh!"_ he hissed intently. _"Shhhh!_ Take it easy, Lexa, it's okay, keep your voice down!"

"Oh, my God!" the girl gasped. "Coach Vecchio! How - how did you find me?"

"It's a long story. Gonna take me about two hours to tell it. Listen, Lexa, where's your mother?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen her in....I don't even know how long I've been here. Mom and I were in Chicago for only a couple of days when these two guys came to the hotel and shoved guns in our faces and forced us into a box truck. Please - did you hear from her at all?"

"No. That's why I came looking for you. Now listen, I brought help, but it's too dangerous to try and get you out of here now." For the first time Ray noticed that Alexandra was manacled to the frame of the bunk - and moreover that the handcuffs were a style rarely, if ever, used since the late nineteenth century. "Looks like that's gonna take some doing anyway."

"But you've gotta help me," Alexandra's voice was trembling. "I already heard them talking about it. It won't be long now before they take us out of here!"

"All right, look. Just sit tight for a little bit, okay? I'm gonna go get help. I'll be back." Ray rose and started to pull back toward the door, wincing at the sound of the chain on Alexandra's handcuffs scraping against the bunk frame.

"Wait!" she squeaked. "Wait, Mr. Vecchio!"

"Vecchio?"

Ray froze in his tracks at the sound of another girl's voice, blurting his name out in near disbelief. He whirled around and aimed the phone again with lit flash. On another bunk aft of Alexandra's lay a second girl, also cuffed to the frame, pushing herself up on her elbows. Other than her hair colour, she bore almost no resemblance to Alexandra - Ray was fairly certain, in fact, that he'd never seen her before.

He took a step closer as the girl peered at him through the gloom. Her face froze, her eyes wide and her mouth falling open. "You're not my father," she exclaimed, as if in shock at the realisation.

Ray stepped over to her and stooped beside the bunk, grasping her shoulder with a sigh. "No," he said sympathetically. "No, kid, I'm not. But I'm gonna do everything I can to get you...." His voice trailed off and he shot a disquieted stare at her. All she'd heard was his last name - what could possibly make her think.... "Wait a minute, your father? Who is he?"

"Funny you oughta ask."

At the rate he was hearing new and unidentified voices, Ray had to wonder how much blood he had left in his ice-water stream. He spun on his knee and stared toward the door, sick with the knowledge that not only had he taken a foolish risk to come in here by himself, but he was now too late to save Alexandra and her companion. A medium-height, heavyset character stood in the doorway, holding an automatic pistol in one hand and a dim six-volt battery lantern in the other. With the latter he illuminated Ray, then the second girl, then he covered Ray again and stepped into the room.

As slowly as if he was in the middle of a dream, Ray stood upright. In the few seconds before his phone went dark, he caught only a glimpse of the intruder's face - but he needed no more than a glimpse. He never forgot a nose, particularly not a nose framed by those eyes, that near unibrow, and that bushy thatch of dark hair.

"You'd know this nose anywhere, wouldn't ya, Ray?" It was as if the interloper had read his thoughts. But what brought Ray's blood temperature even further below freezing was hearing his voice a second time and placing it, placing it so far in the past that he'd come to accept he would never hear it again. Yet hear it he did, and he nearly asked himself aloud if he was seeing another family ghost. At first he couldn't even get his lips to part. When he at last did, only a hoarse, incredulous whisper escaped.

_"Paulie?"_

The newcomer snickered and aimed the lantern upward, briefly illuminating his own face just enough for Ray to see his malicious grin.

"Long time, no see, big brother."


	22. Brothers in Arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UGH. So, so, terribly sorry that this has gone so long without an update, folks. Both my beta and I have been deep undercover with the Real Life Mob for the past couple of months, but I couldn't stand to let this collect any more dust.
> 
> So here's the latest. Just don't hurt me for letting it sit so long....or, for that matter, for how this one ends.

Holding his hands waist-high, Ray shook his head rapidly and tried to get his thoughts in a straight line - but by the time he recovered his vocal fortitude, he found nothing suggesting he was anything but conscious: he still stood in the middle of the dark room, being accosted by a man who couldn't possibly exist anymore, now bringing the muzzle of his gun to rest against Ray's stomach.

"This has gotta be a dream," Ray chortled. "No. No, wait, it's a nightmare. Yeah - that's what it is. I ate some rotten Canadian bacon on my last deep-dish and now I'm dreamin' about some whack adventure Fraser and I never had."

Paulie snorted. "Come off it, Ray. You remember what Pop always said about dreams....he said, 'Dreams are for sleeping. The guy who dreams when he's awake....'"

"'Is the guy who meets his own worst nightmare,'" Ray finished the quote. He felt the air empty from his lungs completely as it sank in. This was Paulie Vecchio, all right - the little rugrat who couldn't get through a day without getting into trouble at school, the mischief-maker who stole and sold Francesca's favourite pair of shoes so he could buy expensive booze for the old man, the younger brother Ray hadn't seen since he entered the police academy, so busy had the guy been following in their father's footsteps. 

"Well, at least one of us hasn't forgot where he came from," Paulie smirked.

"Well, what nightmare did you meet, Paulie? The kind that got a loser like you mixed up with a scumbag like Perry Pengally?"

Paulie shrugged. "The nut doesn't fall far from the tree, Ray, you know that."

Ray squinted, remembering Francesca using those exact words when he'd said goodbye to her. Lips still parted in a smirk, Paulie continued: "Why do you think I skipped Chicago-town right about the time you went into the police academy? Here's a hint - it wasn't 'cause I was afraid of how Pop would react to havin' a cop in the family."

"You thought I'd suss you out and bust you for all that hot booze you snuck through the house for him," Ray concluded, nodding his head slowly as he listened to several large pieces of the puzzle thudding into place. He'd entered the academy at twenty-four, and Paulie wasn't yet twenty-one: already a couple of times Ray had caught him sneaking expensive liquour into the house in the hopes of currying their father's favour. It must not have been the only expensive liquour he'd hustled. Ray's eyes widened as it suddenly hit him.

"And you've been smuggling black-market goods ever since, haven't you?" he said quietly. "Everything from hooch to human beings."

"Give your Uncle Ray a cigar, Sharon," Paulie grinned, glancing past Ray at the second girl. "Maybe one of those Cubans I got my mitts on down in Key West a few years back."

_Uncle Ray?_

Slowly Ray half-turned and stared down in disbelief at the second girl, who was pushing herself up to a half-sitting position on the bunk. "What about my mother?" she demanded. "Where's my mother, you son of a bitch?!"

"Ahh, geez." Paulie clicked his tongue reproachfully. "You hear what she called Ma, Ray? That ain't cool."

"It's a damn sight cooler than throwin' your own daughter to the wolves," Ray sneered. "Is that all Pop taught you about fatherhood?"

"Well, what'd he teach you, Ray?" Paulie snapped back. "Huh? How long did you figure on stayin' with the force before you got so sick of your life you'd eat your own gun?"

"Where _is_ she, you _jerk?!"_ Sharon half screamed.

"Damn it, I don't know!" Paulie shouted before Ray could ask who Sharon's mother was. "I ain't even seen her in years! Last time I saw her, all she wanted from me was how much I netted for movin' the statue of Lei Fung Wah Bus or whatever the hell it was! That tell you how little of a rat's ass she gave?"

"Yeah, about _you!"_ Sharon showed all the behaviours of an alley cat cornered by a Doberman as she tried to rise from the bunk. "But she's my mother, now you tell me what you did with her!"

"Go on, Paulie," Ray added. "Tell her. Same thing you did with Erich Wichmann, was that it? Him, her, and who else? Did you do Lexa's mother, too?"

Even as Ray held a flint-hard face to maintain the bluff, the split-second look of confusion in Paulie's eyes gave it away. He hadn't killed Wichmann. Maybe he'd caught him sniffing around, but he hadn't killed him. Maybe Paulie didn't have the guts to kill someone in cold blood - that was a step in the right direction.

"Oh...." Alexandra whimpered, breaking Ray's stream of consciousness. "Mr. Vecchio, please don't tell me...."

Ray nodded soberly. "I'm sorry, Lexa, but your grandfather's dead. Whoever this lowlife brother of mine is workin' for, you've got them to thank for it. All 'cause your grandfather served on that damn U-boat they pulled off the bottom of the river and he found out what they were plannin' on doing with it."

"Not planning," Paulie said. _"Doing._ And if you're a nice fella and don't make me kill you, maybe you'll get to see it up close."

Ray had a comeback on the tip of his tongue regarding Paulie's gastrointestinal fortitude when the door hinges screeched. This time the door swung all the way over and banged against the bulkhead. Paulie spun around, aiming his light: Ray tensed, ready to disarm Paulie in anticipation of Fraser and Kowalski bursting in to crash the confrontation.

He unwound almost as quickly, seeing that his luck was nothing such. Instead, two men whom he recognised from the intelligence photos slowly stepped over the door coaming and entered the room. Galvin Shugg peered at the two hotheaded Vecchio brothers from beneath scrunched brows: Peregrine Pengally held his submachine gun over his left forearm.

"All right, Vecchio, what gives?" Shugg demanded. "And don't tell me you caught another old fart snooping around."

"Glad not to, boss." Paulie stepped to one side and gestured at Ray with his weapon. "Like you to meet my brother Ray, lately of the Chicago P.D."

Immediately Pengally gripped the stock of his submachine gun in both hands. Shugg, meanwhile, tilted his receding chin and sauntered toward Ray, sizing him up, noting that Ray was doing the same. Then his teeth showed in an unpleasant grin. "Chicago P.D., huh? You never told me you were so copped up, Vecchio. You heard him, Penguin? I bet we have this guy to thank for blowing things down in Chicago."

"Yeah, but it don't make no sense." The high-pitched nasal quality of Pengally's voice alone heralded his nickname. "This guy ain't Ray Vecchio. I found him years ago and settled a family score with his old man."

Ray scoffed, regarding Pengally with total contempt. Then he glanced at Paulie with a smirk. "You wanna tell him, or can I?"

"You can stow it," Shugg snapped. "Both of you. We'll sort this out later. It's just lucky for you we'll be putting to sea soon so we don't have time to dispose of your dead, stiff body - at least not yet. But when we get to where we're going, you're gonna gain a whole new appreciation for the term 'burning cold'."

 

Fraser ended several minutes of cautious creeping in search of Ray on the _Lady of Cobequid_ 's bridge, which he found, in fact, deserted. With a full view of the foredeck, he knelt in front of the radar set and poked his head just far enough above it to watch the goings-on close to the ferry's bow. Several deck hands had gathered round the containers and pallets to convey their contents below: with the aid of his spyglass, Fraser identified Shugg within seconds of his appearance in front of the superstructure. Shugg paused long enough to issue several unintelligible rapid-fire orders to his crew, and even though Fraser couldn't hear every word, Shugg's lip movements said it all.

"Oh, dear," Fraser murmured.

"Fraser," Kowalski told him, "whenever you say 'oh, dear' more than three times in less than an hour, I gotta start lookin' over my shoulder for an old guy with a hood and a scythe behind me. And I am _not_ ready to face him yet!"

"Well, it would appear Mr. Shugg and company found Ray before we did," Fraser said grimly. "And he doesn't believe Ray is alone. He's just given the order to search the ferry, stow for sea and prepare to get underway."

"Oh, greatness. Mighta known Vecchio would just go off on his own and blow the whole thing out of the water."

"You're not just whistlin' Dixie, Stan," Lerschen mumbled, shaking his head. Abruptly he broke off and dropped to a crouch in unison with Fraser and Kowalski, all three of them venturing no more than their eyeline over the panel at the front of the bridge. Through the grimy cobwebbed windows, they could discern the deck hands surrounding the two freight containers, flinging the doors wide. Several crewmen crowded into one container, to emerge several moments later in pairs, toting plastic crates or conical aluminum cylinders between them. Some of the cylinders were marked with the yellow placard denoting an oxidant. Still a few more crewmen penetrated the other container, guns ready for action: on the ferry's bridge, recognition sank in, heads shook and teeth ground as the three watchers saw that half a dozen teenage girls hadn't been as fortunate as the ones rescued from Cullerton Air Force Base. Dirty of faces and tattered of clothing, they exited the container shielding their eyes from the lights and unsteady on their feet, even more unsettled by the rough, evil-smelling men waving them on toward the deck hatch with firearms.

"Bastards," Kowalski growled. "You wanted to catch 'em in the act, Fraser. Well, look. There's the act, goin' right down in front of us."

"God almighty," Lerschen mumbled, still shaking his head. "At the rate these guys are going, this may be the last breath of fresh air they ever get."

"What makes you say that?" Fraser asked.

"They retrofitted that U-boat with air-independent propulsion. There's only one way they could have pulled it off this quickly - rebuild the diesel engines and modify them to run in closed cycle. Those are oxygen canisters they're pulling out of there. And the bulges on the sides of the pressure hull? I'll stake a decade's pay they're charged with hydrogen peroxide. They can run the diesels off that stuff without having to come up for air."

"Oh, dear," Fraser repeated.

"Okay, that's the third 'oh, dear' in twenty minutes, Fraser," Kowalski said, glowering. Quickly he glanced over his shoulder, then continued: "Now you wanna share something with the rest of the class?"

"Hydrogen peroxide is dangerously explosive if it's not handled carefully," Fraser explained. "If the oxidant supply is exposed to an ignition source, the entire boat will turn into a giant depth charge."

"And when that happens, Shugg and his lackeys won't even have time to bend over and kiss their asses goodbye," Lerschen predicted, a morbid edge to his voice. He slowly rose to his feet and eased backward from the windows: he'd seen more than enough.

"So, uh, so what's the plan, then?" Kowalski asked as he and Fraser made a similar motion toward the rear of the bridge. "We sneak back downstairs and disable the U-boat before they can get it out, right?"

"Too risky," Fraser shook his head. "We're severely outnumbered. We've got to get word to Maggie and the others."

"Yeah, but, uh, but now that Vecchio's gone and blown it, bummin' a ride on another barge isn't gonna work a second time."

"Well, a little perseverance and ingenuity...." Fraser never finished. He glanced past Kowalski and Lerschen, his eyes widening just a tic: seeing this, Lerschen spun around only to come nose to nose with a six-shot revolver held by an evilly grinning deck hand. That the deck hand hadn't been to a dentist in ages was more apparent from his breath than from the blood seeping from his upper gum, and he wore his hair in a greasy black mullet. Lerschen almost froze, but he stumbled first, tripping over Kowalski's foot and falling backward to the deck.

His greater bulk had hidden Kowalski almost completely from the deck hand. Seizing the element of surprise, Kowalski lashed out with one hand to grab the bad guy's wrist and jerk him sharply forward. Tripping over Lerschen's still hunched form, the deck hand never had a chance to react before Kowalski kneed him in the stomach, forcing him to drop the gun, and then grabbed the shock of hair dangling from the back of his head. Swiftly Kowalski coordinated hand with knee, catching the deck hand's face between them, and then brought both fists down hard on the back of his neck, dropping him flat, out for the count.

Fraser leaned over and stared down at the inert body of the deck hand. He nodded with approval and said to Kowalski: "And a fundamental understanding of close-quarters combat should work to our advantage, as well."

"Hey, admit it, Fraser," Kowalski said, pumping his fists in the air. "I still got it. _Mmph!_ Go on, admit it."

"Well, I never said you don't, Ray. Quite honestly, I never believed otherwise."

"I'm guessing you guys have done this before," Lerschen said with a wry smile as he straightened up.

"Yeah, you might say that," Kowalski said. "But the odds still aren't our flavour."

"I believe you mean 'in our favour,'" Fraser said pontifically. "But I think I have an idea. I'll meet you astern." 

He waited until the other two had hustled on and left the bridge, then he turned around and smiled. "That's a good boy."

Diefenbaker barked his appreciation aloud - at least he didn't have to worry about being heard by anyone else. He scampered over to Fraser and stared up at him, and had Fraser not known him to be only a spirit, he would have thought of something pointed to say about not being stocked with Reese's Pieces. He crouched and barely stopped himself from rubbing the top of Diefenbaker's head, knowing his hand would only pass straight through it.

"Go find Maggie," Fraser whispered. "Remember what my father said the last time I saw him." Without so much as a yap, Diefenbaker spun round again: he turned and scampered off, vanishing into the darkness aft on the starboard side. Fraser sighed and hastened off toward the bridge hatch on the port side, hoping Dief's ghostly guidance hadn't abandoned him.

He caught up with Kowalski and Lerschen in an open passageway beneath the upper lifeboat deck, hiding in the shadow of a thick canvas sheet overhanging the _Lady of Cobequid_ 's superstructure. Kowalski knelt in a corner next to a ventilation tube, and Lerschen stood a few paces behind him, keeping well out of sight in the darkness.

"Fraser, check it," Kowalski said, motioning toward the afterdeck.

Fraser followed the pointing finger with his spyglass, stiffening as he saw a small party heading from the crew berthing to an open deck hatch. A short, stout, unknown character led the procession. Behind him slowly walked Ray, his hands cuffed in front of him: two more girls followed, joined at the wrist by a second set of cuffs. Pengally brought up the rear, his submachine gun held over his forearm.

"So Vecchio's got himself in the wringer," Kowalski muttered. "What do we do now?"

"They caught him, they'll be coming for us next," Lerschen pointed out. "And I for one don't savour the thought - " He broke off, looking past Fraser with a sudden expression of alarm. Instantly Fraser snapped his balled fist upward, a pure reflex action, knocking out the deck hand who had been sneaking up behind him with a serrated blade aimed at his kidney. Leaning over to make sure the interloper was out cold, Fraser peered over his shoulder, probing with all his senses for further sound or movement from the murk.

"You know, even after my father's death, he had one final piece of advice to offer," he whispered. "Well, actually, he had two pieces of advice. I've forgotten the other one, but the important one was, 'Be seen by those you want to see you.'"

"You didn't happen to bring your Canadian dictionary with you, did you, Pete?" Kowalski grumbled.

"We'll find some way to convince them that there's nothing left to see," Fraser elaborated. "Come on."

He led the way at a quiet, tiptoeing, hunched-over run toward the stowage boxes on the afterdeck. None of them had been locked in years, and the hinges gave more resistance than seemed necessary as Fraser lifted the lid from one of them. A couple of old life jackets and lifelines still nestled inside, and a small half-grin crept across Fraser's face at the sight of them.

"I think these will prove quite useful," he muttered as he started to unbutton the neck of his commando sweater.

"What in hell for?" Lerschen asked, shaking his head.

"Streamline our movements. Ray and I will handle this. I think it's best if you take cover in the crew lounge for the time being."

Not five minutes had passed before another trio of crewmen approached the afterdeck, the conversation amongst them mostly focused on erasing all evidence of the clandestine riveting taking place inside the ferry. The one leading the way - a stocky, swarthy character who looked like he'd been born and bred in a Jiffy Lube - came to a short and dead stop, his two companions bumping into him from behind, at the sight of a total stranger standing tall on the afterdeck before them. The stranger wore a dark watch cap over a head of buzz-cut silver hair, and a thick, bulky jacket over an equally thick and bulky sweater. If he didn't look out of place enough, his jaw was free of stubble and his teeth were clean - he stood out from the rest of the crew by those features alone. Immediately the leader of the trio slipped a silenced Mauser automatic from under his jacket and approached the stranger, demanding his identity.

"Ah, good evening, gentlemen," the stranger replied, smiling.

"I asked you who the hell you were, not how good the air is!" the deck hand snapped.

"Ah. Well, that's a fair question, I'll gladly grant you. My name is Staff Sergeant Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I first came to the St. Lawrence on the trail of the kidnappers of my best friend, and for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I'd like for you gentlemen to lay down your arms and surrender."

The laughter from the three men echoed across the deck, but Fraser held his posture and his pleasant expression, remaining unruffled. "A Mountie, huh?" one of the other criminals scoffed. "If you're a Mountie, I'm Captain Canada."

"Ah. Well, we have something in common, then - the pursuit of justice."

"Oh, we're in pursuit of something, all right," the swarthy character said, grinning satanically. "And it looks to me like we just caught up to it."

"What makes you say...." Fraser's voice trailed off as the man lifted his gun and held it to one side, looking meaningfully past him. Fraser half-turned, his eyebrows lifting toward his hairline at the sight of the crewman Kowalski had taken out on the bridge, wiping blood from his lips and gladly accepting possession of the weapon.

"Oh, dear," Fraser said matter-of-factly.

The husky one snickered, nodding his head. "Famous last words, Mountie." His grin didn't even falter by a single tooth as the man wielding the pistol hefted it, touched it to the middle of Fraser's back, and pulled the trigger.


	23. Iron Coffin

Ray caught himself stealing repeated glances back toward Alexandra and Sharon as Paulie led the way from the main deck hatch down to the vehicle deck. No doubt remained with him that Paulie was Sharon's father, and even less that he'd taken after their own father in both lifestyle and parenting habits. Ray's mind raced, remembering so many times when his father had come home from Fanelli's barely able to walk, yelling for Ma to take his shoes off and for Paulie to get him a beer. So many times when Paulie had brought him hard liquour instead, claiming it was "the good stuff," and gotten cuffed around for his trouble, only for Ray to stand up and assert that there wasn't any beer left - even if it was only a lie contrived to keep Paulie from getting hurt. What kind of rotten childhood had Sharon had to endure? From what Ray had heard so far, she was much closer with her mother than she was with Paulie - but he still didn't know who her mother was and he wouldn't get a chance to ask her with Paulie leading the way belowdecks and Pengally bringing up the rear.

Yet there was something else about Sharon and for the life of him Ray couldn't put his finger on it. Like he'd seen her, or a relative of hers, other than Paulie, somewhere before.

Pengally had made do with limited resources, using one of the cuff sets from the crew cabin to restrain Ray, and the other set to cuff the girls together, then herd all three of them below. Overwhelmed with nerves, fear, and sadness at the fate of her grandfather, Alexandra nearly lost her footing on the accommodation ladder and would surely have brought Sharon and Ray down with her had Ray not caught her in mid-stumble. At least Pengally had had enough presence of mind to cuff his hands in front of him lest he take a tumble of his own down-ladder, but he still had little doubt that the cold-blooded bastard would mow down all three of them if he perceived the slightest provocation. As it was, Pengally seemed split-second ready to rack his submachine gun and open up by the time Alexandra regained her balance.

"Always there to catch the kids if they fall," Paulie observed. "You musta taken after Ma more than I thought."

"Yeah, well, we couldn't all turn out like the old man," Ray grunted.

"How's Ma doing, anyway? Is she still with us?" Paulie didn't seem the least bit sincere as he led the way through a hatch onto a makeshift catwalk on the vehicle deck.

"What do you mean, 'us'?" Ray scoffed. "After you disappeared off the face of the earth, you have any idea how long it took her to bounce back?"

"Well, at least she didn't use any of us just to blackmail Pop into makin' her a few extra bucks - at least, not as far as we knew."

"This is why you should have stayed home, Paulie. Maybe I was the man of the house after Pop kicked the bucket, but Ma ran the entire household until she couldn't walk by herself anymore. And let me tell you something, she did a damn sight better than Pop ever could have prayed for. Just think - could have been you lookin' after her if you hadn't run off to join the Pirates of the St. Lawrence here."

"Take it from me, Ray - no matter where you go, you're always lookin' after somebody's mother whether you want to or not."

Ray glanced obliquely over his shoulder toward the two silent girls behind him. "Yeah, so whose old lady did you find yourself lookin' after?"

Paulie snorted as he led the way across a single-plank gangway onto the _U-896_ 's afterdeck. "You think I'm the lowest insect that crawls, count yourself lucky you've never got yourself mixed up with Sharon's mama. She's a real no-loose-ends kinda lady. Whatever's happened to her, I hope she found out how it feels and I damn sure hope she enjoyed it."

"What'd she do to you, anyway?"

"Look behind you, Ray. _That's_ what she did to me." Without elaborating, Paulie drew up in front of an open vertical hatch: Ray remembered it from the _U-505_ as leading down to the engine room. Paulie moved to the opposite side and poked one foot through it. "Down we go, bro."

With Paulie in front of him and Pengally's submachine gun behind him and the girls, Ray could think of little ground to argue on the spur of the moment. After Paulie had dropped below, he reached awkwardly for the edge of the open hatch with his cuffed hands and started down the ladder, cursing his knees at every rung. He wondered if Paulie suffered from similar arthritic pains, but he obviously didn't suffer from the same guilty conscience Ray always had. He knew what was going to happen to Sharon, and yet her very existence baned him to the point that he did absolutely nothing to prevent it.

Ray took a deep and apprehensive breath as he reached the lower deck and found the immense diesels idling already. That couldn't be good. In a matter of hours, maybe minutes, Shugg and his crew would be casting off and setting out for far-distant horizons - but could they seriously expect to make it out of the river without being detected, possibly sunk, by the Canadian Forces?

Moving to one side of the ladder, Ray peered aft to take stock of his surroundings. The bulkheads, low and narrow, showed surprisingly little corrosion thanks to the fresh water flowing from the Great Lakes: nevertheless, they had seen better days - the countless pits, dents, and striations in the steel looked like they could give way after only a few minutes of sea pressure. Even to Ray's untrained eye, obvious patch welding jobs were in abundance. Not all of the light fixtures seemed to be functioning either, in the engine room or either of the compartments adjoining it. The engines weren't in much better shape: Ray severely doubted the side-to-side rocking motion in their mountings was normal. One way or another, he'd have to talk his brother into seeing the error of his ways before they passed the point of no return - wherever the hell _that_ was.

He bent his head to look further aft. Two deck hands stood at the ready in the electrical room, which even in his narrow sightline looked considerably more up to date than the same compartment on the _U-505._ He had no time to ruminate, much less conclude that much of the boat's electrical and pneumatic equipment had been cannibalised from Canadian submarines scrapped during the past decade. Through the open watertight doors he could see another hood relaxing with an AK-47 in the aft torpedo room. No torpedoes were visible, but in the limited field of vision, Ray could see at least two human bodies lying prone in the bunks. Then two more descended upon him and Paulie - Sharon came down the ladder first and gave Paulie a four-letter look as he gripped her upper arm, sneering at her. Then Alexandra, still shaky in the knees, reached the deck several seconds later and immediately gravitated toward Ray, who had not the chance to make any kind of reassuring gesture before Paulie pulled her over and cuffed her and Sharon together again. Pengally didn't bother with the rungs of the ladder - he just slid down and hit the deck with a loud clank, weapon ready, motioning forward. Gesturing with his own gun, Paulie resumed the lead toward the open watertight door to the control room.

"You know, you didn't answer me, Ray," Paulie said once they had passed out of the elevated noise of the engine room. "Ma still alive, or what?"

"What's it to you? You couldn't care less about your own daughter, what do you care about your mother?" Much as Ray hated to impugn Paulie's family loyalty - such as it was - he was running out of paths to get through to him.

"Hey, I care about my mother," Paulie snapped, whirling on him. "She cared about all of us, didn't she? Enough to have us pack up our favourite things that one time and get ready to get the hell out the door before Pop got home."

"Yeah, and a fat lot of appreciation you showed her," Ray shot back.

"Well, at least she didn't turn to lootin' private antique collections so she could sell the goods and then blame it on Pop. You wanted to know what Sharon's mother did to me? That's the other half of it."

At _looting private antique collections,_ Ray's eyes instantly widened from scowl to saucer. Paulie couldn't possibly mean - _could he?_

"It's no worse than you deserved, you bastard," Sharon spat the last word at him as if her mouth was full of brackish salt water.

"Hey!" Pengally barked. "Whatever kinda family feud you people gotta settle, you can settle it up forward! Get a move on!"

Without hesitating, Paulie turned away again and ducked through the bulkhead from the control room to the officers' berthing space. As he moved further ahead, Ray spied a pair of dirty jeans protruding from a bunk on the port side. It didn't take him long to discern that the jeans still had legs in them, that one of the legs was chained to a foot of the bunk, and then that the legs belonged to someone who might have made his mission a success if not for the annoying inconvenience of being caught.

"Kat?" he exclaimed in surprise.

"Ray!" Dirty and dishevelled, yet charged with adrenaline, Katerina Logan sat bolt upright on the bunk, at once almost hyperventilating. "Ray, have you seen - _Lexa!_ Lexa, oh, sweetheart, are you all right?!"

 _"Mom!"_ Alexandra cried at the same time. "My God! Oh, Mom! I - I'm - " She lurched toward her mother, unthinkingly dragging Sharon along with her: Ray clenched his teeth, instantly reminded of Francesca's reunion with Gina after the high-speed chase last Saturday. This one, however, was doomed not to end as well.

"Hey, get back here!" Pengally snarled. "Ain't no family reunions on this boat!" He yanked Alexandra away before Katerina could grab hold of her, but Katerina, predictably, wasn't so quick to give up.

"Hey!" she shouted. "Mitts off! Give me my baby! _Give her back!"_

If she'd been fearful at the sight of Pengally, she turned downright feral at the sight of Alexandra in his grasp. She and Ray jolted forward almost at the same time, but Paulie grabbed Ray by the shirt front, pushing him back. Meanwhile, Pengally, still crushing Alexandra's arm in one hand, half-turned and held his gun at arm's length with the other, shoving it into Katerina's face.

"You sit down and shut up!" he yelled.

"I said, you get your mitts - " Katerina started on him again, but the chain securing her ankle to the bunk foot caught her short. Face flashing violently, Pengally swung his arm in an uppercut and brought the butt of the gun hard up against the side of her head.

The screams reverberated throughout the compartment as she fell backward onto the bunk - not only hers but Alexandra's at the same time, and Sharon's a moment later. In a reflex action Ray snarled wordlessly, knocked Paulie's hands aside and lunged at Pengally, but his enemy didn't even have a chance to bring his gun to bear before Paulie grabbed him again, shoved him back and punched him squarely in the mouth. With a loud grunt Ray toppled into the bunk on the opposite side of the compartment, just barely breaking his fall with his still-cuffed hands. Paulie, meanwhile, spun around to hold out one hand in a last-ditch effort to deter Pengally from emptying his ammunition clip.

"Shove off!" Pengally snapped. "He needs gettin' out of the way, and this seems like as good a time as any to get it over with."

"He's my brother," Paulie retorted, pounding his breastbone for emphasis. "I'll take care of it when the time comes."

"Yeah, sure you will. Just like you're taking care of dear little daughter here." Pengally jerked his head contemptuously at Sharon, who along with Alexandra was sagging against a wall to one side, wailing with fear. "Hell of a family man you are, Vecchio."

Satisfied with the dig taken, Pengally turned back on the two girls and shoved them roughly back aft.

Paulie, meanwhile, shook his head and sighed - Ray could have sworn the sigh was soaked through with discontent. Fishing out a set of keys, Paulie unlocked the cuff from Ray's right hand and clamped it round the bunk rail beside him. "I know old habits die hard, bro, but stickin' up for the kids is gonna get you killed this time," he cautioned.

"Yeah, well, somebody has to," Ray grunted as he slowly sat up, wiping blood from his lip. "And since you don't give a flyin' rat's ass about Sharon _or_ her mother...."

"Just count your blessings I stopped Penguin from pumpin' your guts fulla lead just now."

"Yeah, now what makes me think Sharon's mother wasn't so lucky? Who is she, anyway?"

"Why, you think she screwed up your life, too?"

"Why don't you tell me and then we'll both know."

Paulie chortled. "If the name Elizabeth Merino means anything to you, Ray, I just might have a handkerchief to lend you."

Ray slowly leaned back against the bulkhead behind him, wide-eyed, and fought spiritedly to hide his shock as a most horrifying revelation sank in. Paulie had hinted at it, and now that confirmed it. Somehow, some time in the last nineteen years he'd gotten involved with Victoria, involved enough to have a baby with her. Ray had half a mind to offer Paulie a handkerchief and tell him to save his own for Sharon. With such a pair of despicable criminals for parents, did she have any hope of living a halfway proper life?

Seeing his reaction, Paulie smirked and turned around to take a closer look at the gash on Katerina's head. "You know her, don't you?"

"What, she didn't tell you all about it when you were schmoopin' in the jacuzzi?"

"What was to tell? Vecchio's a common enough name."

"It's _your_ name, Paulie, and now look what you're doing to it. Hell, even Pop's probably rollin' over in his grave right about now."

"Yeah, sure he is, 'cause no one ever drops over there to pour some hooch over his headstone." Pulling one of the sheets off the upper bunk, Paulie ripped off a corner, wadded it, and pressed it against the oozing wound on the side of Katerina's head. Even as he saw her wince and groan, Ray's eyes narrowed. From the behaviour Paulie had displayed so far, tending to an injured woman didn't meet his expectations at all.

"So now I bet you're gonna tell me what a self-centred lyin' snake like Elizabeth Merino could possibly see in you." He made a point of leaving out Victoria's real name and her fate - perhaps he could use it to gain leverage later.

"Beats hell out of me," Paulie shrugged. "Met her in Atlantic City back in ninety-six, during a game of baccarat. She knew her card tricks, but I knew mine better. I always had an ace in the hole." He grinned slyly and Ray rolled his eyes, a split second after seeing the disgusted look Katerina levelled at his brother.

"Well," Ray said wryly, "there's no accounting for taste."

He paused at the sound of raised voices from outside the boat, echoing around the vehicle deck and carrying through the open hatches. Somebody on the bridge of the _U-896_ shouted something unintelligible down the hatch to a barked response of "Right!" from another faceless voice in the control room. Ray started at the loud and protracted sound of an alarm bell resounding throughout the boat: Paulie jerked upright, grabbing for the pistol he'd tossed onto the bunk above Ray.

He had just started toward the control room when Shugg swung into his path, feet first through the open hatch. He grabbed Paulie's pistol, pointed it at Ray's forehead, and hotly demanded: "How many?"

"How many what?" Ray held his stare, refusing to look into the gun's barrel.

"Don't get smart with me, buster. You Vecchios don't do things alone. And there's a warm body up there who ain't gonna be warm for long if he tries to get away."

"Hell, for all you know, it could be the entire damn Royal Canadian Mounted Police. What if I told you - " Ray was on the verge of a vehement and spirited rant about the RCMP Musical Ride cornering and apprehending heartless terrorists without even breaking formation, but the loud crack of gunfire reverberated belowdecks and cut him off. All four of the berthing compartment's occupants stared upward with varying degrees of emotion. Ray felt a wash of fear and loathing, wondering if any of his companions had been gunned down. Shugg was satisfied, Paulie non-committal. Katerina, her face still mixed with pain, had a look of total revulsion to her, confusion over how she and Alexandra had gotten themselves into the middle of this nightmare.

Another shot rang out, then another. Somebody shouted something brief yet excited into the vehicle deck from topside, and more indistinct voices echoed down the bridge hatch, but only a minute or two slipped past before Ray's ears flexed at the sound of footsteps overhead. Presently a pair of feet hit the deck in the galley with a loud clank: at once Shugg jolted forward, passed through the open door to the galley and demanded a report.

"Some snooper up on the ferry," the crewman said. "Older guy. Said he'd had too much to drink and he was tryin' to find the head. He cut and ran, but Kiefer nailed him, blew him right over the side."

"Glad Kiefer turned out to be good for something besides ruining everybody's sense of smell," Shugg said sardonically. "Pass the word topside to keep an eye out. I'll bet you dollars to dog biscuits the guy wasn't alone."

At this, Paulie looked down at Ray, a half-grin beginning to play across his face and an eyebrow arcing upward. "What of it, Ray? Are you alone, or what?"

Already Ray had sucked in a long breath. He blew it out immediately with a great sigh, staring forlornly down at the deck between his feet. "Looks like I am now."

Ray's despairing front was enough for Paulie to turn away and pace slowly toward the control room. But once his back was turned, Ray looked sharply up at Katerina, meeting her eyes, shaking his head. At once her face burst with hope, but she hastily slumped back against the bulkhead as Shugg returned to the berthing compartment.

"Vecchio," he hailed brusquely.

"What?" Paulie and Ray both answered at the same time, glaring at each other with the same simultaneity.

"No, not you. _You."_ Shugg's thick forefinger aimed straight at Paulie. "Lay aft and help stow away those provisions. As for _you...."_ he went on menacingly, now pointing at Ray. "Wave bye-bye to your buddy up topside. He ain't comin' for you."

"Yeah, well, at the rate you're goin', everybody who's on this damn hunt for the _Red October_ is gonna be drowned dead before sunset," Ray growled.

"Starting with you if you don't mind your P's and Q's, fella." Shugg turned away and made a beeline for the control room. "Where are we on battery charge?" he demanded as he ducked through the hatchway behind Paulie.

"Just about full, boss," came the disembodied voice of another crewman. "'Nuff to keep the scrubbers working till they break down. No promise on the lights, but...." The voice faded away as the conversation moved further aft.

Ray peeked in both directions to make sure no one was eavesdropping and then leant forward, catching Katerina's eye as she looked up, still holding the wadded cloth against her head. "Kat, where the hell are we headed, anyway?"

"Russia," Katerina said, swallowing hard. "Somewhere on the north coast of Siberia. That's all I've caught so far."

"Siberia?" Ray said incredulously. "They seriously think this bucket of bolts is gonna make it all the way across the Arctic?"

"They're hell-bent on trying." Katerina's face contorted with distress. "Whatever they're using to drive this boat, they're awfully optimistic that it'll help them to keep them hidden. But the girls, Ray - that's the be-all and end-all of this whole operation. They're the ones Shugg and his crew are in the business for. They want to turn my daughter and the others over to some sick bastard who's running a mail-order prostitution ring!"

"Sex trafficking for the Russian mafia," Ray muttered darkly, shaking his head. "That's what I was afraid of. Maybe after Vegas I shoulda gone undercover in Stalingrad."

"Wouldn't have ended for you any differently. You and I just got in their way - God only knows what they'll do to us."

Ray pushed out a long, heavy breath as he remembered the warning Shugg had given him in the crew compartment on the _Lady of Cobequid._ 'Burning cold', he'd said. By no token did he want to think about what that could possibly mean - not right this moment, thank you. Right now he had only one hope left in his grasp: that whoever had been shot up there had either faked his demise, or allowed the other two to escape: if not for that, he could imagine no possible way anyone trapped in this iron coffin would survive to reach the edge of the Arctic Circle, let alone the other side of the damn thing.

Whatever was likely to happen, it would be happening much, much sooner than either Ray or Katerina could prepare for. The voices still carried forward from the control room, unintelligible over the rumble of the diesels, but their meaning seemed clear as the pitch of the great engines increased and the elderly submarine's entire hull began to vibrate. Ray looked aft - he'd count himself damned lucky if he ever saw open sky again, let alone seeing where he was going. Yet after seeing the engineering spaces of the _U-505,_ he had a fair idea of what was happening back there: control levers being thrown, propellers starting to turn, and Shugg, or whatever demon seaman was on the bridge, giving order after terse order as the _U-896_ crept backward under the low but steady throb of its own power. At lowest possible speed, it squeezed through the _Lady of Cobequid_ 's stern lock and slid slowly out into the black water of the St. Lawrence.

Suddenly Ray found himself thinking - of all things - about his darling Riviera, still parked at the train station in Toledo. At least he hoped it was still parked there and hadn't been blown up or burnt to a crisp for the Nth time. Before finding that car, he'd visited a scant few other owners in the deep South and taken their Rivs for a little spin to get a better feel for them. Some had handled better than others, and more than one owner of a cantankerous, ill-running car had asserted that it just didn't want to be driven anymore, not without a full bumper-to-bumper restoration. The one he'd eventually settled on - in Massachusetts, of all places - still had plenty of life left in it, it just needed some tender loving care.

Grinding his teeth, Ray wondered whether the _U-896_ still possessed as much will to live, or whether it had seen its day, it had been content to lie on the bottom of the St. Lawrence until either it fell apart or the river dried up, and it would just as soon return to its resting place with all hands - and prisoners - still aboard.

They'd be finding out much too soon. Several minutes passed before Ray felt a nearly imperceptible lurch beneath him and he leaned involuntarily to the left, and the rumbling of the tired old diesels increased in pitch. They had changed direction, moving ahead now, slithering along the side of the now-abandoned _Lady of Cobequid_ and heading for open sea. The pitch darkness and the fog covering the river would hide the ancient U-boat well from spying eyes as it slipped out to the gulf, until day broke and it would be forced to submerge....but then would it ever come up again?

Staring up at the overhead, Ray reaffixed his grasp on his last remaining hope. If one thing had become clear to him over the last twenty years, it was that _nobody_ \- no living human being, not even his worst enemy or his best friend - could kill Benton Fraser.

"Stay with me, Benny," Ray muttered under his breath. "I know you're still up there. And don't forget your Mountie ears. Far as that goes, don't forget your Mounties."


	24. Ray's Gambit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everybody finished with your popcorn? 'Cause starting now, you are gonna need both hands to hold onto your seat.

For the hundred millionth time Maggie closed her eyes and waited to hear the soft, gravelly voice at one shoulder or the other, offering her some kind of advice, some encouragement, just anything to take her mind off the unbearable waiting. For the hundred millionth time nothing touched her ears but the soft lapping of water against the _McClellan_ 's hulls and the occasional toot of a foghorn in the distance. For the hundred millionth time she opened her eyes again to nothing but foggy darkness. She couldn't even see the shores of the inlet where the _McClellan_ had dropped anchor hours ago, lurking at the east end of a small, uninhabited island to the west of the Ile de Perousé. No matter how she wished otherwise, she saw no sign of her father's spirit to either side of her. Even though Ben had told her that Bob Fraser had vanished forever, she'd held out a spark of hope that he would appear beside her someday. Yet now a tear came to her eye as reality gradually sank in and reminded her that she would never see her father again.

She slowly turned a 180-degree circle, but could see nothing beyond the patrol boat's superstructure and McTeague minding the helm, silhouetted by the screens and instruments in the pilot house. Maggie deeply inhaled the damp river air and blew it out in a sigh, then started forward. There was little to be gained by entering the pilot house and asking McTeague if he'd heard anything worth reporting, but she already felt like she had been born on the _McClellan_ 's afterdeck and was going to get old there.

"How long's it been?" Maggie asked.

"Almost eight hours now since last contact," McTeague replied, stifling a yawn.

"Any news from the Coast Guard?"

"No, ma'am. Nothing since the raucous laughter we got in response to the U-boat alert."

"I'm not surprised. There hasn't been one around here in seventy years."

 _Damn it, MacKenzie, have some patience,_ she chastised herself. _You almost got yourself in the doghouse trying to get Mark Torelli to confess. Mum stared down a bear for over an hour, for the love of God. That should have taught you something. You can do this._

Turning to face forward, Maggie suddenly came alert - there was something up on the foredeck she hadn't seen just a few moments ago. Eyes narrowing, she wordlessly turned away and ducked back out the aft hatch.

She hurried around the superstructure to the starboard side and knelt out of sight of the pilot house: there Diefenbaker met her, trying to paw excitedly at her bent leg only to find his paws passing straight through it. Maggie resisted the urge to pet him, realising the same thing was apt to happen.

"What are you doing here, boy?" she asked. "What's going on?"

At once Diefenbaker whirled around and dashed forward. He paused on the foredeck just long enough to look back at Maggie, who was already back on her feet, hurrying after him. She glanced furtively at the pilot house to see if McTeague was watching: he continued to stare straight ahead as if expecting to see a ghostly cruise liner appear out of nowhere dead ahead. Maggie hunched over and moved up the foredeck behind Diefenbaker, who came to an abrupt halt and stood still in his tracks, staring ahead like a pointer.

He looked back at Maggie, barked, and then pranced a few more steps toward the bows. Maggie very nearly warned him aloud not to fall overboard, but not even the chance ever came. Diefenbaker leapt straight ahead, over the bulwark, vanishing into the fog before he even fell out of sight.

"Good boy," Maggie whispered. She straightened up and repaired aft at a dead run, bounding back up the ladder into the pilot house the way she'd come.

"Let's go," she told McTeague crisply. "Back to the ferry. My brother's waiting for us."

"Are you sure, ma'am?" McTeague stood up, staring at her in confusion. "If we're about to go up against a full complement of smugglers and killers with only one patrol boat...."

"We aren't. Trust me, McTeague, nobody's waiting for us there except Ben and the others. Let's get her moving. _Now!"_

**********

Having carefully secured his fishing pole to the lid of the bait box, the old Rimouski fisherman stood up as straight as his aged, cramped muscles would permit and peered through the dissipating fog in search of his marker buoy. He'd had his 24-foot fishing boat idle off the north side of the Île du Bic, a small island in the midst of the St. Lawrence, ever since the first light of the morning, bound and determined to make a catch before too many other fishing boats and pleasure craft showed up and scared all the fish away. The white light of the buoy failed to catch his eye. Perplexed, he stepped aside from the bait box and headed toward the wheelhouse.

"Bryer, old son," he called to his partner, who was affixing a piece of bait to his hook. "Any sign of the buoy? Can't hear clang nor clink out there."

"Should be just off the starboard quarter," his partner answered. "Just keep an ear open, eh?"  
"Any opener than they already are and my brains'll fall out." The old man shuffled aft, but he stopped short in his tracks at the sight of his fishing pole. He'd dogged it down securely to the lid of the bait box, but the rod itself had suddenly taken on a bend of about 35 degrees.

"Bryer! Got me a catch already!" the old man called out. He hastened aft, but he'd just struck one hand out to grab the pole when all at once a sharp tug rocked the entire boat. Both fishermen braced themselves, watching in disbelief as the lid tore free of the bait box with a rending crack of wood splitting, and hurtled over the side along with the pole. Not even a bubble remained on the surface to mark the pole's last, deep resting place.

"Catch got you instead, eh, Lammy?" Bryer observed as the boat steadied out on an even keel. He made his way aft to where his own fishing pole was wedged into one of the sideways-facing jump seats, and set about lashing it to the railing atop the gunwale with a length of spare line.

"Well, as the fella says, the fish that got away is always the biggest one," Lammy muttered.

Presently Bryer glanced up at the sound of a quiet and unassuming gong emanating from a patch of fog on the starboard side. With a knowing smile he gestured and pointed over the railing. "Lookie there, Lammy old son," he announced. "There's the buoy. Right there, right where I told ya."

"Well, I sure never....oh." Lammy broke off at the sight of the dark green, paint-chipped marker buoy bobbing up and down on the river's ripples. Yet no sooner had he laid eyes on it than it rocked sharply to one side and dipped halfway below the surface. It jerked from side to side, its bell clanging wildly as if it was crying out for help, before it, too, abruptly fell under and vanished into the depths of the river without a trace.

For a very long moment the two fishermen stared incredulously at the spot on the surface where the buoy had been not a minute before. Then they turned slowly to stare at each other, and which of them was more dumbfounded it would have been difficult to say.

"Biiiiiig grouper," Bryer said slowly.

**********

If buoy and fishing pole were ever to see the light of day again, it wouldn't be for another few miles downstream. Well below the depths of the fishermen's wildest fantasies, the pole had snagged the bridge railing on the _U-896_ as it crept along with the current, only a few metres above the riverbed. The buoy had likewise been ensnared by one of the boat's forward diving planes and torn free of its anchor on the bottom. The sonar operator hadn't even noticed it: he was thoroughly occupied listening for any surface craft showing more than a passing interest.

Ray was quite preoccupied himself, although not only with trying to avoid a small, irritating trickle of water dribbling from a brine pipe above his bunk. His mind was in overdrive trying to work out the timeline of the last thirty years. Paulie had disappeared off the face of the earth late in 1984, that much he knew for certain. Not quite eleven years later, Victoria had fled Chicago thinking Fraser was dead, by Ray's own bullet. Somehow, some time after that, they'd both crossed paths in Atlantic City, and Icky Vicky had managed to manipulate Paulie into bed. At least that made sense: Sharon appeared to be no older than sixteen or seventeen. It made Ray sick to think of his shiftless little brother getting cosy with a scheming witch like Victoria, and yet it made an odd kind of sense as well - a black marketeer and a professional hustler seemed like an effective business partnership as well as a tryst of sexual decadence.

But Ray kept coming back to one incomprehensible question: _why?_ Why did Victoria go to the trouble of subtly coercing Paulie to impregnate her? From all he'd picked up so far, Paulie detested the mere fact that Sharon was alive. What had he done to Victoria that she'd been using Sharon all these years to make him pay blackmail? Ray felt terribly sorry for the girl: he wondered if she knew her true reason for living, not even her own reason. If they were both alive by the time this was over, there must be something he could do to convince her that she was worth more than that.

He grimaced as he sat up and squirmed away from the growing wet spot on the bunk, but with his left hand still cuffed to the bunk rail, he could only squirm so far. No matter what position he assumed, the steadily trickling and annoying stream of water still dampened his sleeve.

"Whoever said 'Getting there is half the fun' should be tried, sentenced and hanged within the hour," Ray grumbled as he sagged back against the creaking bulkhead beside his bunk.

Katerina leant across the aisle between them, shooting a peek toward the control room to make sure nobody was eavesdropping. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper and enquired: "My father, Ray. Did you hear anything from my father? One word, even?"

Dolefully Ray shook his head. "I'm sorry, Kat. I was too late. He's already dead." He closed his eyes, but they failed to keep Katerina's choked-back sob of anguish from reaching his ears. "But not for nothing, he found out what these clowns are up to. And if it wasn't for him, you and I never would have headed for Chicago and we damn sure never would have gotten this far."

He opened his eyes just in time to catch sight of Paulie in their corner, shoving himself through the hatch from the control room. "And I wouldn't have caught up with my scheming punk of a little brother after all these years, either," he continued, raising his voice.

"Yeah, and it's doin' you a world of good now, ain't it?" Paulie snorted. "Just imagine if you'd stayed home and minded your own business, you wouldn't be anywhere near the jam you're in now."

"Yeah, and then who would have found out you got an eighty-eight-year-old man killed for knowing too much?" Ray fired back.

"I bet now you're gonna tell me you'd have done any differently in my place."

"Damn right I would have. Just you imagine, what if you hadn't run off and joined this circus? What if you met some guy when you were younger - say like an upright, straight-laced, do-gooding Mountie who taught you that you could still find the good in people even if you had to manufacture it? But did it ever occur to you to stay and fight? No, you just had to go and get yourself mixed up with a black-market blackmailer, a blind hit man and a Captain Nemo wannabe who thinks the Coast Guard is just gonna close their eyes and count to a hundred!"

"Watch your mouth, Nosey," Shugg broke off Ray's rant as he passed in from the control room. "And get it right the first time. It's their ears they gotta plug - unless you happen to know anybody who listens with their eyeballs."

"You'd be surprised," Ray muttered under his breath.

Shugg rolled his eyes and leaned in the doorway to the sonar shack. The sound operator had been on constant watch ever since the _U-896_ entered the main stream of the river, both surfaced and submerged. Since the dive, his guard had been up higher than ever - if he allowed a collision to happen with Shugg and Pengally hanging over him, he wouldn't even live long enough to be arrested.

"Still no company?" Shugg asked, crossing his arms.

"Too much," the sonar operator grunted. "Small craft, cruise ships, freighters, you name it, it's up there. But there's one boat parallelling our course and closing in from astern. Sounds like high-speed twin propellers. He's coming up behind us pretty fast."

Ray leant forward on his bunk, drawing Shugg's attention with a sardonic smirk. "Might as well surface and get it over with, pal. You've got nowhere to run. The river's too shallow and you're too slow down here. The Canucks'll cork the bottle on you before this damn sewage pipe can even drown you."

"Not likely," Shugg scoffed. "You damn Yanks aren't the only ones who are in a budget crisis. Make sure you write Harper an extra-nasty thank-you note in the unlikely event you ever see dry land again."

"I don't know, boss," the sonar operator said doubtfully. "Whoever that is up there, the closer he gets, the slower he goes. He might have us pegged already."

"We'll deal with him," Shugg resolved, turning back for the hatch to the control room.

Ray caught him in the act of bending down to pass through. "Yeah, how do you figure on that? You got a couple of torpedoes stuffed up your ass that you think no one else knows about?"

"Penguin!" Shugg barked. He stood up straight, glaring at Ray, and held the glare until Pengally ducked through the hatch and stood beside him. "Take him astern and put him on ice," Shugg said, nodding at Ray. "If he so much as hiccups, saw him in half."

"Game on." Grinning like a crocodile, Pengally stepped toward Ray with his submachine gun levelled.

Slowly, stiffly, Ray sat up straight on the bunk, staring Pengally in the eye for the best part of a minute. But Pengally wasn't about to drop his guard, not even as he unlocked the cuff round the bunk rail. Ray looked past him at Katerina, who lay in the opposite bunk shaking her head, her face streaked with tear tracks. At least Shugg seemed to want her kept alive, otherwise she more than likely would have ended up like both her father and Victoria - but still, he shuddered to think of what might yet be in store for her.

Next Ray glanced upward and aft as Pengally pulled him to his feet. High-speed twin propellers, closing from astern....he decided not to mention the _McClellan_ or the tenacity of the senior officer aboard. Let these bastards find out firsthand.

**********

Maggie squatted on the _McClellan_ 's foredeck, ogling her brother: he'd been prostrate between the bows almost from the minute they had pulled him and Kowalski from the muddy water beside the _Lady of Cobequid._ He held a hollow section of PVC pipe to his ear with one hand, and with the other hand he held the pipe as straight as he could manage between his ear and the water, a task that sored his arms with the near 24-knot speed the _McClellan_ was currently making. Little did Maggie know that Fraser held his posture for more reasons than just listening.

Finally he lifted his head and withdrew the pipe from the water. "Our own propeller noises are causing a good deal of interference, but I believe the _U-896_ is about twelve hundred metres ahead and making a speed of roughly eight knots," he said. "That gives us a closure rate of about four hundred metres per minute. We'll be over them in no time."

"And backup's still hard to come by," Maggie said grimly. "Any ideas?"

"Best to reduce our speed until we come up with one." Fraser laid the pipe aside and braced his hands on the forward bulwark. "Ah, Maggie....could I perhaps trouble you to....?"

"Any time. Ray!" Maggie yelled over her shoulder.

In less than a minute Kowalski was on one knee on Fraser's other side. "Didn't you learn a thing or two from the Ice Queen about what one-armed push-ups can do for you?" he said sarcastically as he grabbed Fraser's left arm.

Maggie grabbed the right, and in concert they heaved Fraser up from his prone position on the deck: his back and both legs remained stiff as a board until they had manhandled him to an upright stance. He took a deep breath, reached behind him and gingerly massaged the small of his back, then nodded gratefully. "Ahh, thank you both most kindly."

"Gonna make it there, old man?" Maggie half-smiled.

Fraser grinned in reply. "A bullet wound in my back is nothing new. But I knew that life jacket was layered with enough kevlar to prevent another one. As luck would have it, the pressure on the old wound was enough to take me off my feet and convince my would-be executioners that I was dead."

"Yeah, and s'pose they'd gone for the back of your head?" Kowalski fussed.

"I count myself most fortunate they didn't. And you, Ray, are you quite sure you're all right?"

"For the nineteenth time, Fraser, I'm even better than good! I'm totally giddy!" Kowalski blurted, throwing up his hands in annoyance. "The lowlifes on that ferry, they, they couldn't hit the broad side of a battleship!"

"They could've gone for the back of _your_ head, too, you know," Maggie pointed out as they made their way aft to the pilot house.

Fraser entered first, though he relied rather more heavily on the handrails at the rear entrance than he had done before. "Constable McTeague, our course and position, please?"

"Holding steady on zero six zero, sir," McTeague answered. "We're just about to cross the ferry lane from Rimouski to Forestville."

"Very good. Kindly stay your course and reduce speed to twelve knots."

"You got a plan, Fraser?" This from Welsh, who stood off to the port side of the pilot house with his arms folded.

"Not yet, sir. Not unless I can deconstruct their intentions. Do you happen to know the hydrography of this area?"

"Well, the river's widened to almost twenty miles shore to shore, and it's well over a hundred miles on out to the gulf. The water deepens to over two hundred feet in the middle of the channel here. If they're smart, they should be heading for it."

"That would be the logical step." Fraser's eyes narrowed and he absently scratched the side of his neck. "But on their present course, if they're down too deep, they stand a significant chance of running aground."

"Who the hell are we dealin' with, anyway?" Kowalski shrugged. "I mean, this, this guy Shugg, is he one of those types who, ah, who knows how to play hide and seek with boats?"

"I guess the root question is, just what does he know about sailing in a submarine?" Maggie added.

Without waiting for a reply, Kowalski sidled around Fraser and dropped down the stairwell into the crew cabin, where he found Prescott, Rondeau, and Lerschen watching the winking red dot of the position tracer move steadily to the right along the plasma screen.

"He was the executive officer on H.M.C.S. _Tuscarora_ in the nineties," Prescott began after Kowalski had put the question to him. "He was in line for command, but the _Tuscarora_ was tracking a _Delta_ -class Russian attack submarine outside Franklin Bay on her final deployment, and she lost contact while Shugg was on watch. His C.O. relieved him and he was passed over for promotion. When the _Tuscarora_ and the rest of her class were decommissioned at the turn of the century, that was the last straw. He resigned his commission before the year was half over."

"Hold on, you got all that just from a Google search?" Kowalski said with a tremor of concern.

"You should look up your own name some time, Detective Kowalski. Not only were you abducted by alien robots when you were ten years old, you were cloned under the alias Leonid Conroy."

"Okay, well, uh, why don't we save that for a _Battlestar Ponderosa_ script. So Shugg, he, uh, you say he lost a Russian sub up by Franklin Bay." Kowalski's eyes narrowed just before he aimed them at Prescott. "There wasn't a Holloway Muldoon involved by any chance, was there?"

"Holloway Muldoon, the notorious smuggler who had a major deal cooking with American militants back around the same time?"

"Fraser and I were there to nail him. The Russian sub? He was on it."

"No wonder they put Shugg on the beach for losing contact," Prescott mused. "For that matter, no wonder he resigned in such a huff."

"Bitter much?" Kowalski chortled.

"Well, in the submarine service," Lerschen said conversationally, "being put ashore and passed over is not only a career-killer, it's an insult. He must have jumped at the chance to give his government the finger by taking up human trafficking in a way nobody else could have dreamed of." He frowned deeply and faced the screen again, seeing that it now marked the _McClellan_ 's position less than two miles off the south shore. "But he's going to die just trying to get past the headland. And he'll take everybody on that boat down with him."

**********

Shugg would have agreed wholeheartedly with Lerschen on both points, but not before subjecting him to a flaming pep talk about underestimating one's adversary. He fairly swelled with accomplishment just knowing he'd gotten this far in raising a long-sunken U-boat from the dead, drawing on international resources to make it seaworthy again. Of course he would be first to allow that he never would have gotten this far without the backing of the Russian mafia, waiting not only for his prisoners but for the boat itself and its newly retrofitted, AIP-supplied engines - but to get any farther, first he had to winnow out and elude whoever was following him. Satisfied to have Ray out of his hair, he leered at Katerina as he passed aft through the berthing compartment and stood in the doorway of the sonar shack, where Pengally already stood hanging over the sound operator's shoulder with his arms crossed.

"Where's our friend?" Shugg asked.

"I - I don't know," the sonar operator replied, throwing up his hands. "He dropped his RPMs and disappeared into our baffles a while ago."

"Baffles?" Pengally repeated with a sneer. "What the hell does that mean? That you lost him and you're too baffled to try and pick him up again?"

"I mean he's right behind our propellers and I can't hear a damn thing at that angle," the sonar operator snapped back. "I _won't_ pick him up again till he's right on top of us, especially not with outdated equipment like this."

"Don't knock it," Shugg said, knocking on the face of the sound gear. "That's the best sound stack you'd ever find on an _Oberon_ -class submarine. And I should know - I ripped it out of the old _Tuscarora_ myself before they cut her up." He pushed himself from the doorway and squeezed through the hatch into the control room, at once drawing the attention of an erstwhile shipmate of his bending over the chart desk.

"Boss, if my reckoning's dead enough, we're passing southeast out of the deep channel. She could hit bottom any second at this point."

"Don't tell me what I already want that guy up there to think," Shugg growled. "Get ready to come left. We'll let him close in a little before we make a turn for deep water."

**********

Pengally had found the most uncomfortable spot imaginable to park Ray in the aft torpedo room - right on top of a torpedo skid ahead of the port tube. The bulkhead was so far behind Ray that he couldn't lean back against it, and the skid itself could not possibly have been less comfortable to sit on. The steady thrum of the propellers right underneath him only served to amplify the discomfort, but Pengally had gone one step even further and cuffed Ray's ankle to the foot of a bunk, much the same as Katerina's predicament, with the added aggravation of placing his leg in a constant state of stretch. To top it all off, in that bunk lay Alexandra, Sharon in the one above her, just to remind Ray how hard his solo rescue mission had crashed and burnt. 

The guard lounging in the canvas chair between the tubes, cradling his AK-47 in his lap, made matters even worse, even if they should somehow break free. Ray could see only one way of taking his mind off this dilemma and clearing his thinking: talk to Sharon and try to close the gaps in the timeline. But she lay with her head in the crook of her elbow, silent and unmoving, and it was all Ray could do to figure out how to break the ice - until she lifted her head fractionally to glance at him.

"My mother's dead, isn't she?" she mumbled against her crooked arm.

Ray sighed and nodded without looking at her. In any other circumstance, he would have rejoiced in Victoria's demise: but not now, not sitting right next to her illegitimate offspring who had enough emotional trauma weighing on her as it was. "Yeah," he said finally. "But I don't think Paulie killed her. He doesn't have the guts."

"Oh, no...." Ray's attempt at reassurance passed unnoticed through Sharon's ears. With her free hand she covered her mouth to stifle a sob, but it escaped all the same. Ray touched her shoulder, wrestling with whether or not to tell her of her mother's true identity.

He found it surprising but encouraging that Alexandra had the presence of mind to pose another question. "But Mr. V, if he didn't kill her and Opa, who did?"

"Could have been any one of these punks," Ray growled, scowling at the guard lounging between the torpedo tubes. The only reaction the guard gave him was a dirty look: he showed nothing but indifference. As long as the _U-896_ was submerged, he remained self-assured that all he had to do was sit here with his gun and make sure no one tried to get out.

"All I know is," Ray went on, "Paulie may have found Erich snooping around, but he didn't have it in him to shove his head under the water."

"How do you know?" Sharon sounded as sceptical as she did distressed. "He's a first-class jerk, what would have stopped him?"

"He's a jerk all right, but he's also my little brother. One time when we were kids, we were taking a bath together when he pretended to try and drown me. It was our little sister's idea. But after I got out of it...." Ray couldn't help grinning at the memory. "I gave him a swirlie he'd never forget. Be a cold day in hell before he'd ever try anything like that again."

"I bet it was that short guy they call 'Penguin'," Alexandra offered. "Seems like the kind of guy who would not only hurt a fly, he'd pull its wings and legs off before he drowns it."

"Kinda like your cousin Danny?" Ray said with a wry smile. He felt a rush of relief at seeing Alexandra half-smiling back - he couldn't ask any more of her right now, but at least she was in a talking mood.

Gently he patted Sharon's arm. "Hey, that reminds me - you got a fistful of cousins yourself, Sharon. My younger sister's got four kids, and my youngest sister's got three. One of 'em is about your age. She just barely missed the boat here."

"Lucky for her," Sharon muttered.

"When's the last time you saw your mom?"

Immediately Sharon hid her head in her elbow again and curled a little further toward the fetal position. Ray glanced at the guard, who still lounged with indifference with his rifle in his lap. Then he leaned over Sharon and whispered in her ear: "Look, I know it's not an easy place to go. But I gotta figure a way to get us out of this besides drowning or getting shot. And it's not gonna happen if I can't get through to Paulie somehow. So please, talk to me."

With a visible effort Sharon lifted her head again, but she still didn't look him in the eye. "What's today?"

"Thursday," Ray answered, a split second before he realised what she was asking. "October second."

"Oh, my...." Sharon breathed a breath of disbelief that it had been that long. "I haven't seen my mother in almost a month, then. We went out to Chicago to meet some extended family I never met before. I last saw her at the train station. These, um, these two men came up behind me while she was in the ladies' room, put a gun in my back...." That was as far as she got before she choked on her words, eyes pressing tightly shut, pushing her face hard into the thin mattress under her.

Ray squeezed her shoulder, even though he seriously doubted it was much of a comfort. Already his brain was in overdrive again. Chicago. _Extended family._ Suddenly it dawned on him: he had been next on Victoria's hit list. He thought back yet again to his conversation with Fraser about her lust for revenge. If she thought Fraser was dead, she must surely have held Ray responsible and decided to go after him next, no matter how long it took her. He already knew she'd gone to the extra trouble of casting him into the fires of Internal Affairs. Only by taking up permanent residence in Florida had he managed to avoid her this long. Exhaling slowly, he tried to organise his thoughts in the best Mountie fashion as he leaned close to Sharon again.

"So then they dragged you up here and locked you down on the ferryboat," he muttered. "They knew Vic - your mother would come after you loaded for bear. God almighty, they used you as bait! And Paulie...." He stopped dead in his words - could she handle knowing that her mother had been using her to blackmail her father all her life? That she'd been further used as a lure?

Yet Paulie claimed not to have seen Victoria in years: who could say whether Sharon's abduction was his idea or just another stone on the ring. Whether he had seen Victoria or not, Ray would never be certain. He took a deep breath, sighed, and rested his forehead in his hand. Vecchio or Metcalf, Sharon could handle no more of this right now: already she was sniffling and crying softly again.

"So you gonna tell her the rest?"

He looked up to see an unsmiling Paulie standing over him. "Go on, Ray. Don't stop, I'm interested."

"You interested in why Sharon's old lady turned up dead in Chicago two weeks ago?"

"Nah," Paulie scoffed. He shook his head, almost contemptuously, and headed toward the starboard torpedo tube. "Happy coincidence, that's all," he explained as he unsealed the breech door and reached inside for a tin can of lubricating oil.

"Yeah, just like it's a happy coincidence that Sharon was supposed to be visiting 'extended family' in Chicago, huh?"

"Oh, like that makes a difference."

"That extended family is _ours,_ Paulie!"

"Well, it wasn't my idea!" Paulie snarled, spinning around as if to bean Ray in the head with the oil can. "I told you I ain't seen that damn woman in _years!"_ He half-turned to kick the door of the torpedo tube shut for emphasis, but Ray stayed unruffled.

"Bull. You used Sharon the same way her old lady did." The words grated from his throat like ground meat. He hadn't wanted Sharon to hear this right away, but his temper was as far back in the mists of history as his patience. "You and I both know she blackmailed you for however long this kid's been alive, and you'd do anything to put a stop to it, including getting a reptile like Pengally to bump her off for you. That make you any better? Hell, even Pop never sank low enough to put a hit on his own girlfriend - let alone use Maria or Frannie as bait!"

"And what if I told you Sharon wasn't the only one Elizabeth used?"

"Damn sure wouldn't be news to me."

"You know, it's funny, I couldn't help wondering why Elizabeth kept askin' after my family even after I told her a hundred times I wasn't in touch with 'em anymore." Paulie suddenly grew reflective, almost as if he'd had an epiphany. "But I think I get it now. You knew her, I knew her, she ended up dead in Chicago - she had one hell of a beef with our family, didn't she? She seemed real interested in the name from the get-go. And I bet now you're gonna tell me just what she wanted with us."

"I'll lay ya eight to five she never told you _her_ real name," Ray snapped. He had only one card left - he had no recourse but to play it. "I had the displeasure of finding that out from my best friend after she screwed him silly. She - "

What remained of Ray's hair bristled at the sound of a loud and pronounced creak from the hull plates all around them. He sat up straight, eyeing the pipes overhead, aware of the others in the room stiffening as well. Sharon's cries abruptly fell silent, and she struck an unconscious reach out for the bunk post closest to her. Even the guard, indolent as he was, seemed to come alert.

"That's....not a....good sound," Alexandra said nervously.

Ray recognised the quote, but it was far from the appropriate moment to mention it. He shot a look forward through the hatch into the electrical room, breathing easier as he saw the skeleton crew further forward going about their business as if nothing had happened. Assuming any one of them had been aboard an operating submarine before, such discomfiting noises must be nothing new to them.

"Relax, bro," Paulie said, putting up a less than convincing front of confidence. "Nothin' but us going deeper, that's all."

"Yeah, well, God only knows how deep we - " Ray broke off at the sound of a tooth-rattling crunching screech reverberating through the bulkheads from somewhere beyond them. The _U-896_ lurched to one side, the horrible rending screech continued, travelling further aft along the hull: it almost sounded as if something was dragging along the side.

 _"That_ was _not_ nothing," Ray said, glaring at Paulie. "I think you and me better take a little walk up forward - " His voice caught again, this time interrupted by a metallic scream of even greater atrocity that sent chills throughout his nervous system: this one accompanied by a hard, heavy crack and a shuddering shock through the deck beneath their feet.

"Paulie...." Ray growled.

Any warning he had in mind would have been pointless. As unnerving as the screeching and cracking might have been, another and far more horrifying sound carried away the last remaining nerve in the torpedo room. The stern lurched perceptibly downward in unison with the rush of water filling the torpedo tube Paulie had just closed.

"Oh, jumpin' Jeez...." Paulie never finished. He was too late to leap for the breech door of the tube to make sure he'd secured it - for secure it he had not. The sealing ring around the rim of the door broke free altogether, the door flew open and the massive ram of water pouring through the tube knocked Paulie clean off his feet.

Half a dozen terrified, ear-piercing screams rose toward the overhead, but never reached it: the two-foot-thick torrent of water roaring out of the open torpedo tube drowned them out as it filled the bilges in seconds, flooding the entire compartment.

**********

_"My God!"_

Fraser pushed himself up from his prone position between the McClellan's bows, completely forgetting about his PVC pipe as he dropped it into the water. _"McTeague!"_ he shouted over his shoulder. "Flank speed! Give it every turn she's got!"

"What, Ben?" Maggie demanded, clutching his shoulder. "What's going on?"

"Help me up!" Fraser commanded. As Maggie hastily complied, Fraser struggled to his feet, his face masked with genuine horror. "They've collided with something and torn hull! They're flooding! They'll hit bottom in less than a minute!"

"Collided, with what?" Kowalski demanded as he ran up alongside Fraser.

"Must be the _Empress of Ireland,"_ Fraser panted. "This is about where she rests. But that's not important. We've got to summon a rescue team!"

"The _Empress of Ireland?"_ Kowalski repeated, hastening aft alongside Fraser and Maggie. "Who the hell is she, King Triton's mistress?"

"No, a transatlantic cruise liner that sank here a hundred years ago," Maggie answered. "Either Shugg forgot that she was here, or he went too deep. Either way, we're gonna have a second mass grave on the riverbed if we don't do something fast!"


	25. Nautical Disaster

So much happened at once that Ray couldn't take it all in. He couldn't comprehend that Paulie had been hurled all the way to the forward hatch of the torpedo room by the ram of water, that two of the men in the electrical room had sprung into action and dragged him through the hatch before pulling it closed, least of all that the scrape with the wreckage of the _Empress of Ireland_ had torn off the muzzle door of the torpedo tube. Only one thing jumped to the fore of Ray's mind as he saw the guard leap out of his chair, throwing up his hands to protect himself from the stream and blindly flinging his rifle over his head.

Without even a first thought - but rather with a rote reaction he'd learnt from Jackie Iguana not enough years ago - Ray jumped off the torpedo skid and grabbed the rifle in midair. Swiftly he reversed it, slamming the butt squarely into the back of the guard's head. With a loud groan barely audible over the roar of water rushing in, the guard dropped out cold, but Ray didn't even take a moment to watch him crumple. He twisted round with mad headlong speed and aimed the AK-47 at the coil of chain attaching his ankle to the bunk foot.

Already Alexandra had leapt backward off her bunk, relieving Ray of the need to aim carefully before he opened fire. A short burst of three shells severed the chain, whereupon he hurled the weapon aft and into the already knee-deep water. He had no further need of it: he, Alexandra, Sharon, and the other two girls occupying the room had only one dire, quickly dwindling need - survival.

Gripping his head in both hands, Paulie sat up on the deck of the electrical room just in time to hear the muffled roar of water crashing against the other side of the hatch to the aft torpedo room: and over the roar, the frantic voice of one of the electricians who had pulled him through before sealing it.

"Control, manoeuvring!" the electrician hollered at the speaking tube hanging from the overhead. "Number six tube open to sea! Aft torpedo room is flooding! Hatch is secured, but she's about ten seconds from dragging her ass on the bottom!"

The speaking tube in the control room might as well have turned into a dagger-fanged serpent for the reaction Shugg directed at it. Without acknowledging, he spun round, cursing under his breath, and slapped the arm of the grey-maned sailor overseeing the diving station. "Cormie, gimme flank speed, now!" he barked. "Blow number five main ballast!"

"Check!" Cormie jumped for the ballast pump, but even as he spun the high-pressure air valve he pounded on the inclinometer above the diving controls. "But we got a five-degree up bubble already! At this depth - "

 _"I know, damn it!"_ Shugg shouted. "Just keep our screws out of the mud!"

 

Paulie rolled over and struggled to his feet, his mind firing on four of six cylinders, fueled by the sound of water crashing into the other side of the closed hatch. At the sight of the electricians frantically throwing levers and shutting off circuit breakers, it hit him - Ray hadn't made it through the hatch with him, nor had the guard or any of the imprisoned girls. He launched himself at the hatch just in time to hear fervent pounding on the opposite side.

 _"Paulie! For God's sake, open the door!"_ He could barely hear Ray's voice over the rush of water, but he could see some of it starting to trickle through the seal. He started on one of the latches, but one of the electricians had pounced on him before he could so much as loosen it.

"Vecchio, what the hell are you doing?!" he yelled.

 _"I said, open the damn door, Paulie!"_ Ray roared, pounding on the other side again. "We're in it up to our waists already!"

"That's my brother in there!" Paulie shouted at the electrician, rapping on the hatch. "I can't just leave him!"

"You got no choice! The water's already too high! You'll never even get the hatch open!" The electrician shook him by the shirt front, their noses almost touching. _"Forget about it, man!_ Let's get the hell outa here!"

Paulie almost ceased to breathe as he stared at the closed hatch and realised that he could no longer hear any yelling or pounding from the other side. His shipmates would throw a flying tackle on him if he even tried to crack the hatch again. There was nothing preventing outright tragedy. His brother and his daughter were drowning in there, and he could do absolutely nothing about it - least of all forget it.

Ray uttered a melange of colourful curses far from fit for adolescent ears as he gave up on the forward hatch, now almost totally submerged along with the open torpedo tube itself. The lights had long since gone out, leaving only the emergency battle lanterns to bathe the torpedo room in a surreal blue glow. The four girls had climbed to the topmost bunks, as far as they could possibly get above the rising water, all eyes locked on Ray as he hurled himself toward the ladder to the upper hatch.

"God's teeth, Mr. V, what are we gonna do?!" Alexandra screamed.

"You're gonna listen to me!" Ray shouted. "If your grandfather escaped from this damn boat once, so can we! I don't know how deep we are, but we're dead for sure if we don't try and break out of here! Now grab a hold of each other, and hold on like you're scalin' a cliff! Lexa, gimme a hand here!" He reached the ladder, but by now the water was so high that only five rungs remained between the water level and the hatch. "Now when we get this hatch open, everybody take the deepest breath you ever dreamed of and hold it! _For the love of God, hold it!_ You understand me?!"

Four frightened heads nodded in unison, but where fright was terribly evident on their faces, Ray dared not let them see his own. He was just as afraid as any one of those girls, but the last and worst thing he could do was show it. Still, the rapidly rising water didn't terrify him nearly as much as the spectre of letting them all die without doing anything to try and save them. He held his fear in check by letting his rage boil over, rage at Paulie, rage at Shugg and Pengally, rage at himself for letting things get to this point of life or death. He yanked himself up the ladder and levelled all his fury at the sealing wheel on the bottom of the hatch.

 

"Stay your course!" Fraser urged McTeague as he clutched the railing beside the _McClellan_ 's control console. "She's dead ahead!"

"Could be dead under us by now, Fraser, for all we know!" Welsh exhorted. "We're doing thirty-six knots, they can't even make nine!"

That the _McClellan_ had reached its top speed was even more obvious from the concerted efforts of all hands to maintain their balance than by the constant pounding, pitching, and yawing as it rocketed across the swells of the river's surface. Kowalski hung back near the aft entrance to the pilot house, ready to dash out on deck in case he got too seasick. Lerschen hung onto the railing on the starboard side and strove - as did the rest of them - to spot some sign of the _U-896_ breaking the surface.

"They could be doing fifteen or sixteen if they have the AIP working," he called across to Welsh. "But we still - "

"Staff Sergeant Fraser!" Rondeau interrupted from below. He pulled himself halfway up the accommodation ladder from the crew cabin with one hand pressing on an earphone. "Backup's on the way! I radioed in a vessel in distress and signed your name! Should be a CCG patrol boat coming upstream, diverting to our position in less than fifteen minutes!"

"Well done, Rondeau," Fraser nodded. "Acknowledge and tell them to have inflatable boats at the ready!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Sir, we should get our own rescue gear ready," McTeague offered.

"Right you are," Fraser nodded again. "Maggie, Ray, Fenton, let's get up forward and stand by!" Ignoring the ache in his back, he released his hold on the railing just as the _McClellan_ pitched and flung him back toward the entrance. He crashed into Kowalski from behind, bringing them both tumbling down the steps to the afterdeck, where Kowalski landed on his stomach and Fraser on top of his friend's back. Kowalski grimaced at a sharp pain in his shoulder, almost as if the muscle had pulled, but he forgot all about it as he tried to heave Fraser off of him.

"Fraser, that better be your thirty-eight stickin' me in the back!" he yelled.

"Of course it is, Ray! I'm allowed to carry it for a change!"

"You guys okay?" Maggie asked as she and Prescott helped Fraser up.

"Better to ask it of the people on the _U-896._ Come on!" Fraser and Prescott hastened forward: Kowalski passed through a momentary daze of amazement as Maggie strongly yanked him to his feet by one arm - fortunately not the hurt one - and tightly clutched his hand as she led him toward the foredeck.

"What are you now, Power Girl?" he demanded.

"Not that I'm aware of, no," Maggie called over her shoulder.

_(A/n: Soundtrack["Nautical Disaster"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7T_w8sCe0A) by The Tragically Hip)_

Cormie knelt on the bench in front of the diving controls, bending over them with every muscle tense, both arms exerting a crushing force on the hydraulic switches controlling the diving planes. He had the stern planes on full dive and the bow planes at fifteen degrees as he fought to bring the boat level, but the stern still sagged, the bow hovered at 100 feet and it was all the skeleton crew could do to hold themselves upright. He shook his head and pounded with the heel of his hand on the inclinometer.

"Aft ballast is dry, but we're almost at ten degrees up bubble," he told Shugg. "Water's coming in too fast. I can't hold her for long!"

"That's it, boss, you gotta take her up," Pengally urged, gripping the shoulder of Shugg's jacket.

"Forget it!" Shugg snapped, shoving him roughly away. "I'll see her on the bottom before I let Norman and his flunkies get their hands on her, or me!" He spun toward the aftmost speaking tube, the same one that had given him the dire news of the flooding torpedo room. "All hands astern, get up forward on the double!" he shouted. "We've gotta level her off!"

He half-turned to see Paulie climbing through the hatch from the engine room - a literal uphill battle with the steepening angle of ascent the _U-896_ had assumed. "Vecchio, that goes for you, too!" he shouted. "And make damn sure nobody gets out of the forward room!"

"Control, manoeuvring!" the speaking tube bawled from behind him. "We're losing RPMs, and quick! I think the screws are mired!"

 _"Damn it to hell!"_ Shugg snarled, pounding his fist against the periscope. Almost immediately he had to grab for one of its hoist cables as the _U-896_ lurched forward and the bubble in the inclinometer suddenly decreased by almost five degrees. Only one thing could account for that - the stern had hit bottom and the bow was not far from it.

Paulie also found himself thrown forward, flailing wildly about for a purchase. Almost as quickly as he found one on the air-compressor housing, his eye fell on another one: the high-pressure air valve for the ballast tanks. He had no idea how to operate it, but one glance over his shoulder, one last mental image of Ray, Sharon, and the other girls trapped in the rising water in the aft torpedo room, and it no longer mattered. Unseen by the other three, he flung himself at the valve and spun it almost two full revolutions before the _U-896_ lurched again, he lost his grip and toppled to the deck.

"Jesus Paul Jones, that's done it," Cormie puffed as he pushed himself up from the bench, listening with sickness in his stomach to the roar of high-pressure air coursing through the main ballast tanks, shoving their contents back out into the river. "We're gonna broach! Six seconds to the surface!"

 

On the foredeck of the _McClellan,_ Fraser and Maggie had barely finished securing the chain-and-bar ladder to the forward bulwark when Fraser shot a glance toward the surface of the river. He immediately froze solid, staring open-mouthed: Maggie followed his sightline in the nick of time, not even a second before the river's surface broke and the _U-896_ 's bow burst from the depths. Its conning tower roared into view a moment later, white froths of water cascading from the bridge like parade streamers. The ancient submarine surged forward under hard drive from its engines, the propellers free of their miring on the bottom of the river and now fighting against the increasing weight of water in the stern. Less than fifteen metres in front of the _McClellan,_ it jolted both Fraser and Maggie into bolting upright and jumping back from the bulwark. At the sight of the visible parts of the deck and conning tower, Fraser felt his hair stand on end: the entire stern was still underwater and the boat was listing to starboard.

"McTeague, get us in closer!" he shouted toward the pilot house at the top of his voice, waving his arm violently forward. "Try to straddle her! Everybody stand by for rescue!"

"All right, that goes for you guys, too," Welsh snapped at McTeague and Rondeau, both of whom stood fidgeting madly at the control console. "I'll take the helm! Go on, get out there, go!"

His voice and his face burst with authority, galvanising the two young Mounties into action. With a hasty response of "Yes, sir!" they both leapt for the aft hatch, bounding down the steps to the afterdeck and grabbing lifelines before they ran forward on opposite sides of the superstructure.

Welsh clutched the helm in an iron grip, reducing throttle as he manoeuvred the _McClellan_ in astern of the _U-896,_ attempting to straddle the submarine's stern with the catamaran hulls of the patrol boat. He couldn't even spare two fingers to cross that the _U-896_ wouldn't suddenly veer off to one side or the other and collide with the _McClellan_ before they even had a chance to get anyone off - but the people in that submarine, he reasoned, be they crew or captive, had far too much on their minds to worry about veering off. He reduced speed further and gripped the wheel in both hands, holding the _McClellan_ over the _U-896_ 's stern with grim resolve.

"My God, look at her!" Lerschen gesticulated wildly at the half-surfaced U-boat. "The up angle! The aft torpedo room must be - " He stopped short as his gaze fell on the hatch to that compartment, and beheld the sealing wheel twisting from side to side. _"Fraser!_ Someone's trying to get out! They're trapped!"

"Okay, let's go!" Fraser yelled. "Ray, the safety cord!"

"Heads up!" Kowalski yelled back. Unlocking the winch, he heaved all his strength on the safety cord and dragged it forward with him: Fraser had snatched it from his grasp before he even made it to the bulwark. Then Fraser took a flying leap off the _McClellan_ and into the water covering the _U-896_ 's afterdeck, grunting loudly from the pain in his back, maintaining his balance only by his grip on the cord. Kowalski followed, then Maggie and Lerschen, as Prescott hung back on the bulwark and waited to receive survivors.

Below, the water in the aft torpedo room was just over a foot away from the overhead. Ray and Alexandra had fought every inch to turn the sealing wheel, but the water on top of the hatch refused to yield. Only now did it even begin to budge.

"Oh God - oh God - oh God - " Sharon clung to an overhead pipe, tugging on it spastically as she tried to keep her head above the water. "We're gonna die - we're gonna die - oh God we're gonna die - "

"Damn it, we are _not gonna die!"_ Ray roared. "Get a hold of yourself, Sharon! We're only gonna die if we don't try and get outa here! Lexa, one more - " He had just started to push on the hatch again when all of a sudden it flew open, yanked ajar by some unseen force. A huge bomb of water poured through it, threatening the last remaining foot of air in the torpedo room. Ray pushed himself back and almost lost his grip on the ladder as he spluttered and coughed, simultaneously trying to clear his eyes and his throat of the evil-tasting water.

 _"Okay!"_ he bellowed at the girls. "This is it! Deep breaths! Hold onto each other! Lexa, _go!_ Sharon, _go!_ Abby, _go!_ Lisa, _go! Go, go, go, go, go!"_

Scrambling for a purchase on the ladder, Alexandra ascended first, fighting her way through the wall of water even as it reached the overhead. She groped blindly with one hand and searched for the rim of the hatch, clutching Sharon's wrist in a death grip with the other. Sharon braced her back against the well of the hatch and pushed herself up the ladder, pulling the other two along with her: finally Ray could stay above the water no more. He tilted his head back, inflated his lungs to the limit and plunged under, groping for the ladder.

Alexandra nearly expelled her pent-up breath in a scream of surprise as she felt a pair of hands lock like irons around her groping arm. She clung desperately to Sharon even as the big, strong hands hauled her mightily through the hatch and her head finally broke the surface, into blessed, fresh air. She blew out what breath she had saved, inhaled again and coughed, falling into the water covering the upper deck, and wiping it from her eyes just in time to see three strange men and a woman dragging the other three girls up out of the hatch. Though she had no idea how the bright orange cord dangling beside her had even appeared, she grabbed it and pulled herself to her feet, reaching for Sharon, who nearly fell overboard as she half waded, half stumbled along the submerged deck.

"C'mon! Up here!" They looked up to see two men in RCMP uniforms leaning over the bulwark of another boat, beckoning to them. Sharon was first to spot the chain-and-bar ladder and leap for it, pulling Alexandra with her. They hadn't even ascended halfway when Prescott and Rondeau rendered the ladder redundant, pulling both of them straight out of the water. They had barely dragged them over the bulwark before they reached down again to pull the last two girls aboard, whereupon McTeague hustled forward with an armload of first-aid supplies.

All Ray could see was that the ladder in the torpedo room had cleared: none of the girls remained. Their erstwhile guard had not been so lucky, but Ray couldn't dwell on him. He forced the image of the man's drifting body from his head and swam up into the hatch well, groping above him for the rim of the hatch. Almost immediately both hands played into bone-crushing grips, and Ray felt himself lifted straight through the hatch, above the water's surface and onto the main deck, where Fraser and Kowalski quickly manhandled him to a crouching position forward of the hatch.

"Ray! _Ray!"_ He barely made out Fraser's voice over his own gasping and coughing. "Are you all right?!"

"Yeah," he panted. "I'm okay, Benny. But that ain't no bank vault, and that's a fact!"

"Come on!" Fraser cajoled. "Backup's on the way! Let's haul clear!"

 _"No!"_ Ray shouted, scrambling to his feet. "No way!"

"God's sake, Vecchio, we just saved your ass!" Kowalski yelled. "Don't throw it in the drink again!"

"Forget it!" Ray's furious determination was almost tangible enough to sear Kowalski's eyebrows. "There's more kids up forward - and so's my little brother!"

Fraser and Kowalski had only a second to stare at each other in disbelief before Ray headed up the slanting deck at a dead run for the engine-room hatch - the water now swirled around its rim as well.

 

 _"Cormie! Us, submerged, now!"_ In the control room, Shugg's pose could easily call to mind Mike Tyson versus Evander Holyfield, but Cormie's own face remained chiseled from granite.

"No can do, boss!" he rebutted, punching the compressed-air gauge. "No can flood tanks! No can close high-pressure air valve!"

"I don't wanna hear 'no can do'! All I wanna hear is water on top of my deck!"

"Well, you're gonna hear plenty of _that,_ no matter what happens!"

"Ah, screw this," Pengally hissed, jumping to the conning-tower ladder. "It's all over! Let's get outa here!"

"On ya, Penguin!" Cormie whirled away from Shugg and gyrated around the ladder, just ahead of his boss's failed grasp on his sleeve. They shared a much elevated sense of self-preservation that outweighed any notion of finishing the job or avoiding capture: Shugg, however, had his priorities - and frustration bordering on homicidal rage as he saw his goals plunging to the bottom of the river ahead of his stricken submarine.

"You two take one step up that ladder and I - " He had just started drawing a .45 automatic from his back pocket when all at once a premature gun blast rang in his ears. A poor moment elapsed before he realised that he was falling to the deck, one leg out of control, the calf suddenly burning with agony. He dropped his gun with a howl, grabbing the ladder for support and forgetting all about Pengally and Cormie as they scrambled unhindered up to the conning tower.

Shugg sucked in a great breath and looked up, stunned to see Paulie up on one knee, aiming his revolver at him. Paulie had the face of a black wolf about to leap on a wounded caribou as he struggled to his feet and advanced on Shugg, grabbing him by the collar.

"Damn you, Vecchio, what the hell do you think you're doing?!" Shugg shouted, half through pain, half through disbelief that any man under his charge, let alone three of them, should turn on him.

"You always wanted to go down with your boat, didn't ya?!" Paulie snarled. "Well, you're welcome!" Without waiting for a retort, he clutched the lapels of Shugg's jacket in both hands and dragged him forward.

Pengally pulled in and blew out monstrous gasps of effort as he hauled himself up onto the bridge, looking aft, his eyes widening at the sight of the _McClellan_ holding fast over the _U-896_ 's sagging stern. He didn't even have to see the uniformed Mounties on either boat: all he had to see were the flags flapping wildly in the _McClellan_ 's rigging and the RCMP herald embossed on its superstructure to know who he was dealing with.

"Ah, crap," he snapped at Cormie. "It's the damn Mounties! Pass it on forward, abandon ship! I'm gonna try and hold 'em off!" He yanked his submachine gun from a shoulder holster and dashed aft, taking cover behind the aft flak gun, much the same as the Rays had done when under fire on the _U-505._ Already Ray Vecchio had plunged down the engine-room hatch with Fraser and Lerschen hot after him by the time Pengally got into position - but the odds were still stacked against him.

 _"Down! Everybody down!"_ Maggie hollered at the top of her voice. She had caught sight of Pengally a split second before he disappeared behind the shield of the flak gun, but the split second was enough. Everybody out in the open had either dropped under the water on the afterdeck or flung themselves to the far sides of the _McClellan_ to avoid being hit by the time Pengally opened fire. Most of his first fusillade ended up in the water, sending up a white frothing spray, but a few bullets panged off the _McClellan_ 's deck and bows as he haphazardly painted the area. No sooner had his clip run dry than Prescott rolled over onto his stomach, gun drawn - and yet Kowalski was first to return fire. Braced in the well of the engine-room hatch, he viciously emptied his gun against the edges of the flak-gun shield, joined in another split second by Prescott, Rondeau, McTeague, and finally Maggie from a half-submerged spot on the afterdeck. Together they more than matched Pengally's rate of fire, sending him diving for cover behind the flak gun.

The firefight passed between Fraser's ears almost unnoticed as he ran up the sloping deck of the engine room, pushing himself along with the support of the railings. "We've got to give all hands time to evacuate!" he shouted at the top of his voice, straining to be heard over the bellowing diesels. "Peter, the throttles, where are they?"

"Up forward!" Lerschen answered, pointing ahead. "Let's just hope they got enough juice to keep her afloat!"

 _"Ray!"_ Fraser yelled. Ray was almost to the forward hatchway - obviously he had no interest in the engines or their role in keeping the boat surfaced whatsoever.

"You guys do what you gotta!" Ray roared over his shoulder. "I got some business to take care of!" He struggled up the inclining deck and heaved himself into the now-abandoned control room, while Fraser and Lerschen hurled themselves around the forward ends of both engines. Immediately they recognised the throttle levers, but the operation was lost on only one of them.

"That's it, all the way up!" Lerschen shouted as he threw the levers on the starboard engine all the way to their stops. Fraser mimicked him on the port side, wincing at the elevating, thundering, rattling racket of the huge diesels shuddering in their mounts.

"C'mon, the manoeuvring room!" Lerschen exhorted, running aft and beckoning madly. "Full throttle's no good if the E-motors don't respond!"

They passed beneath the hatch just as Kowalski leapt back out of it, both feet striking the deck, pushing himself up straight. "Maggie, cover me!" he yelled behind him.

"Ray, no!" Maggie cried. "He won't even think about killing you!"

"Well, then, _cover me already!"_ Kowalski hollered back. His breath came in hard, bull-like grunts as he ran up the afterdeck toward the flak-gun platform, just in time to see Pengally poke head and gun-bearing hands out from behind the shield. Maggie had no recourse but to open fire, keeping Pengally pinned down, but feeling her heart race with terror at the sight of Kowalski flinging himself into harm's way.

 _"Bloom...."_ Kowalski snarled to himself as he drew both fists back behind him. Hs face was set in a ferocious sneer, like a polar bear diving upon a walrus.

Maggie expended her last bullet, watching sickly as Pengally edged out from behind the flak gun again, sliding under the railing to meet Kowalski head-on.

 _"Close...."_ Kowalski didn't even shorten his stride as he struck both fists out in front of him.

Whether Pengally's gun jammed at the last second or he hesitated at the sight of the grey-haired but bare-fisted and raging character bearing down on him with murder in his eye, Kowalski would never be totally sure. He snapped one fist aside, knocking Pengally's gun out of his grasp. The other fist rammed squarely into the hit man's face, knocking him flat on his back.

 _"Kick 'im in the head!"_ Kowalski roared as his trailing foot swept forward at the blistering pace of a fastball. The heel cracked against Pengally's forehead before he even had a chance to sit up. He collapsed flat on his back again, knocked nearly senseless as the back of his head thudded against the deck.

Having retrieved Shugg's fallen automatic from the deck in the control room, Ray grimaced and gasped and ground his way up the slope into the officers' berth space, holding on for his right knee to give out - it hurt considerably more than the left one. He found Katerina on her feet, desperately jerking at her left leg, trying to free herself from the foot of her bunk.

"Kat, sit down!" he shouted. "Hold still!" Even as Katerina hastily obeyed, he spread his stance, sighted carefully on the shackle, and fired twice. The chain snapped clean, Katerina leapt off the bunk and half ran, half tumbled toward the aft hatch before Ray caught her, hearing her gasp Alexandra's name in panic.

"Go on, Kat, go!" Ray yelled, waving aft. "Lexa's up top already! She's okay!"

"But your brother, Ray!" Katerina cried, frantically pointing toward the bow. "He's up there! He dragged Shugg along with him!"

"Okay, I'll take care of him! Just _go!"_

Ray hadn't even made it from the berthing space to the galley when a sudden tidal wave of humanity almost knocked him over. The survivors of the _U-896_ 's skeleton crew had gathered forward in a futile effort to bring the boat back on even keel, but having received the word to abandon ship, they were only too glad to comply. Many of them now jockeyed for position at the ladder to the galley hatch, but they paid little or no mind to the remaining four girls who had been held prisoner in the forward torpedo room. Ray's nostrils flared furiously at the sight of them, a sight lost and found and lost again in the midst of too many shouting, pushing, shoving criminals desperate for their own survival. Looking aft, Ray first saw Katerina at the ladder to the conning tower: after she had climbed up out of sight, he spotted Fraser and Lerschen running forward through the engine room. The _U-896_ shook and shuddered and wallowed more violently than ever, as if fighting to survive long enough for everyone to escape.

Shoving one criminal roughly out of the way, Ray grabbed the nearest girl's arm. "Get back there, go on!" he barked. "There's a police boat right behind us! You can get out one of the rear hatches! Go on, go, _go!"_ He hurled her and then one of her fellow prisoners back aft, but he hadn't the chance to reach for the other two when one of the guards seized his opportunity for a quick getaway.

"Not _you,_ you punk!" Ray spat. He grabbed the guard by the collar, dragged him halfway across the compartment and decked him squarely in the jaw, sending him collapsing backward against the cookstove. The gap widened just enough for Ray to reach the last two girls and yank them on past him, sending them aft toward the animated beckonings of his two friends in the engine room. Satisfied that all four of them were in the clear, he left the remaining crew to their own devices and resumed his hustle toward the forward torpedo room. He still hadn't seen hide or hair of Paulie or Shugg - that compartment was the last place they could be.

"Come on!" Fraser hollered at the last four girls as they tripped, stumbled, and bounced their way down the ever-inclining deck toward the engine room. "Come on, we'll get you all out of here! Peter, you stay down here! I'll receive them topside!"

"Right!" Lerschen took up station at the foot of the ladder, wincing as an unexpected shower struck him in the head and shoulders. Adrenaline surged through him, and he looked up through the hatch to see the truth of his horrors - the _U-896_ had shipped so much water astern and lost so much weight forward that the heartless river now threatened the engine-room hatch.

It had accelerated with the additional thrust from the engines, but it was nowhere near its top speed. Still, Welsh sweated profusely as he fought to hold the _McClellan_ in a constant position over the stern of the _U-896._ Reducing throttle, then increasing it, then reducing it again, he had only split seconds to wipe sweat away from his eyes as his hand snapped from helm to throttles and back to helm again.

Fraser reached the main deck just in time to see that backup had at last arrived - and come to a dead standstill, mindless of his own peril or that of anyone still below.

A brand-new Canadian Coast Guard patrol boat stood off the _U-896_ 's port bow, opposing its heading. Already its crew were at rescue stations and dropping one inflatable boat off the stern, but Fraser noticed neither of these: he stared in surprise and amazement at the name stencilled on the patrol boat's bow.

ROBERT FRASER.

It would be a long time before he would realise that Rondeau's signature of his name to the vessel-in-distress message had brought that patrol boat bearing down on their position. Vaguely he heard Kowalski shouting his name just before he felt his old friend's hand clamping hard on his upper arm. Quickly he regained his senses and pushed himself to his knees, reaching through the hatch alongside Kowalski, watching the water ripple much as it might around the abdomen of a bellowing alligator, feeling the deck planks shudder underfoot as the _U-896_ struggled to stay afloat. Then with a hefty boost from Lerschen, the first girl clambered through the hatch and into their grasp, to be pulled free of the dying boat and helped aft by Maggie. Kowalski took care of the second, and Fraser the third: then Maggie returned to aid the fourth as Fraser and Kowalski repaired to the hatch, aiding Lerschen to haul his great frame up out of the engine room.

The water was almost up to their waists by the time they reached the bows of the _McClellan_ and Prescott and Rondeau pulled them aboard.

Most of the skeleton crew had taken dives from the _U-896_ 's foredeck, swimming away to both sides to get away from both it and the _McClellan_ \- only to find that their only other hope of survival lay with the _Robert Fraser,_ with its rescue crews and its two Zodiac boats darting around the _U-896_ to pluck them from the river.

Ray finally made it to the forward torpedo room, braced himself in the hatchway and swept a gaze of fire across the compartment. First he saw Shugg, lying on the deck between the torpedo tubes, bleeding from an ugly gash in his head and an even uglier bullet wound in his shin. Then he saw Paulie, standing in front of Shugg, withdrawing a large wrench from a stud next to the upper starboard torpedo tube. Then, looking up, Ray saw the upper hatch ajar.

"C'mon, Paulie, let's get outa here!" Ray yelled, waving aft. "There's rescue boats up there, now come on!"

"Ohhh, not me, bro!" Paulie replied. "This is the last bath we're ever gonna take together!"

At the sight of his brother's face, haggard and grim, Ray felt an iron fist of dread punch him in the gut as he realised what Paulie was going to do.

 _"No, Paulie, don't do it!"_ he shouted. "Sharon needs you, man! Now get your ass up there!"

"The hell she does! You and I both know she hates my guts, and why shouldn't she? I just left the two of you to die back there! You think you could live with that?!"

"If you lived through Pop and your scheming bitch of a girlfriend, you can live through anything! Now come _on!"_

"Just get on with it, Vecchio!" Shugg snarled. He tried to sit up, but the agony of the bullet wound in his calf kept him from achieving more than a half-sitting position on the deck. "You wanna kill me and your own damn self just to be all altruistic and self-redeeming, then _get it over with!"_

 _"I said, don't do it, Paulie!"_ Ray urged. "Get home! Let Ma see you one more time!"

"Oh, come on, I don't even exist there anymore!" Paulie rebutted. "You all forgot about me even before I left, and you know it! There's no going anywhere for me - there's just me making up for a hell of a lot of dumb mistakes! More than you'll ever know!" His hand came to rest on the sealing rings for the breech doors of the two upper torpedo tubes.

 _"Paulie, no!"_ Ray hollered again. He started into the torpedo room, one hand striking out, desperate to reach his brother and stave off his twisted notion of self-sacrifice before he could carry it out.

"Look after my girl for me, Ray!" Paulie shouted. Then his face froze in strange, eerie calm.

Without even breaking eye contact with Ray, he gave the sealing rings a sharp yank.

Shock and despair smote Ray far ahead of the great battering ram of water that crashed through the torpedo tubes, the breech doors flying open and knocking Paulie backwards, out of sight. The weight of the water, the pressure, and the submarine's speed all conspired against Ray to get much further forward than a bunk tier without being washed off his feet.

 _"PAULIE!"_ he howled, as if his own anguish would stop the water from rising.

He'd already seen one torpedo room flooded by an open tube, but no matter what Paulie had done to drive him to sacrifice himself, Ray couldn't dream of leaving him. He fought the solid wall of water rushing through the tubes, trying to grab a bunk post to anchor himself. The water was too much, and he could already feel the bow of the _U-896_ pitching downward from the added weight.

"Ray! _Ray!"_

He was vaguely aware of Fraser shouting his name as he tried to spot some sign of Paulie in the midst of the roaring torrents. No human forms caught his eye. He heard Fraser shouting his name again, and an exhort to abandon ship: suddenly it hit him, that in only a few minutes the _U-896_ would be back on the bottom of the river, this time for good.

Then Paulie's last words - his dying wish - rang in Ray's ears. Squeezing his eyes shut, he spun around and ran aft, the great deluge of water following him through the hatch from the forward torpedo room into the berthing spaces.

"Come on, Ray!" Fraser yelled. "They're still with us!"

"I'm comin', Benny!" Ray replied, waving his hands. "Go on! Get outa here!"

Seeing Ray rushing aft through the berthing spaces, Fraser leapt for the conning-tower ladder and hauled himself up.

Ray reached the control room seconds later, a quick glance into the engine room revealing the water now pouring steadily through the hatch: then his foot caught on the coaming of the doorway and he sprawled forward, cursing to himself. As he pushed himself back to his feet, he hastily looked forward to see that the galley hatch was nearly inundated as well and the water from the forward torpedo room had nearly reached the control room. His adrenaline surged, he hauled himself up the ladder and scrambled frantically up the next ladder to the bridge. He reached the open air just in time to see the _McClellan_ close astern, as close as Welsh dared to bring it without risking a collision. Off the port beam, the _Robert Fraser_ had turned 180 degrees to parallel the _U-896_ 's course, its Zodiacs motoring around behind the _McClellan_ bearing all the survivors they could carry. On the _U-896_ 's afterdeck - now almost completely submerged - Fraser had just flung himself from wade to swim and made for the ladder hanging from the _McClellan_ 's forward bulwark.

 _"Vecchio!"_ Kowalski yelled at the top of his voice. "Watch your head!" With his rope and grapple in his hands, he was already swinging the grappling hook over his head lasso-style. Ray shot a quick glance forward, just long enough to see that the _U-896_ 's foredeck had started to dip below the waves. He bolted for the flak-gun platform, reaching it a second after Kowalski let the grappling hook fly, staying clear of it as it wound itself round the railing at the rear of the platform.

Only the _U-896_ 's conning tower was now visible - the tower and Ray at the rear of it, unhooking the grapple, clinging to the rope and plunging into the water. Fraser and Kowalski heaved with all their might to pull him away from the foundering U-boat before it could suck him down to its last, now eternal, place of rest. Ray fought to hold his head above the water as Welsh stopped the _McClellan_ 's engines and then threw them into full reverse, gritting his teeth with a prayer that Ray would be able to hang on until they could pull him aboard.

But none of the three old friends were about to let each other down. The pain in Fraser's back nearly forced him to his knees, he yowled and he grimaced in agony, but he didn't dare release his grip on the rope. Kowalski hauled on it like an old-time sailor running out a 24-pounder cannon despite the growing, aching weariness in his arms. Ray kicked madly, clinging to the rope with a death grip, fighting the suction of the sinking submarine to the last, until he kicked his way beneath the bulwark and grabbed for the ladder. With one hand he hung onto it whilst Kowalski reached for the other, dragging him up until he finally, gratefully collapsed on the safe and dry deck.

He rolled halfway over, Kowalski crouching beside him and Fraser standing behind both of them. Every eye on the _McClellan_ followed the same path, drawn enraptured to the _U-896_ 's final moments. It had been resurrected for an evil purpose, but it had fought back much as Paulie had, finally sacrificing itself to drown those evil deeds without a trace. It had hung on long enough for all the innocent souls it had carried to escape before it succumbed to the sea once again: and now its hour had come.

With its interior now almost completely flooded, the _U-896_ slowly settled into the depths, the water around its conning tower bubbling and frothing until it vanished beneath the surface for the last time.

Ray wheezed and coughed on the deck with nary an upward tic of his head. Years from now, he would still be asking himself what flabbergasted him more: that he'd narrowly escaped an untimely death, or that he'd watched his long-lost brother, after seeing him again for less than a day, forfeit his own life to atone for his sins.

"Ray!" Fraser puffed as he and Kowalski pulled Ray to his feet. "Ray, are you all right?"

Ray stood upright, but he didn't answer. His expression was one of catatonic shock as he stared at the dissipating froth on the surface of the river, watched it intently until it disappeared altogether, replaced by the flat footprint of water being displaced. He breathed heavily and raggedly, his eyes dropped to the _McClellan_ 's deck: then he gulped, turned and stumped past Kowalski without looking at him.

He staggered down the deck toward the superstructure, where most of the rescued prisoners had gathered, clutching what warming survival gear the patrol boat could provide. Katerina and Alexandra huddled together off to the port side, clinging to each other intently. Sharon sat beside them, hugging her knees: she looked up as Ray headed directly for her, and her face froze in horror as she saw the hollow shock filling his visage. Then the horror melted and erupted into grief as Ray fell to his knees beside her and pulled her into a near suffocating hug, mumbling unintelligibly through his own despair.

Not another muscle on the boat moved: yet several other eyes moistened at the sight of Ray and Sharon hanging onto each other for dear life, the last vestige of a life still dear to Ray, and the only dear life Sharon had left to cling to. She sobbed inconsolably, and Ray fought a losing battle to choke back his own emotions, yet no amount of strength he could share with her would reverse the loss they had both just suffered.

A motion caught the corner of Fraser's eye, and he shot a look downward to see Pengally stirring from his prostrate position on the deck. The hit man started to push himself up with one arm, but Kowalski caught the motion at the same time and whirled on him.

Fraser had heard the threat countless times over the years, but he'd never seen it carried out until now, until Kowalski took one long step toward Pengally and with the next step smashed the toe of his boot squarely into the side of the criminal's head. The force of the kick heaved Pengally over onto his back, and he bellowed with shock and pain, clapping one hand to the point of impact. Kowalski was on him in an instant, dragging him upright, pulling out his gun and ramming the muzzle into Pengally's forehead.

"You think that hurt?!" Kowalski screamed in his face. "That the worst pain you ever felt, huh? Well, how do you think my old man felt when you popped him in the back of the skull for no reason? Now where do you want it, in the back or right here in front?!"

 _"Ray, no!"_ Fraser and Maggie shouted in unison. With one hand Fraser grasped Kowalski's shoulder and with the other he reached for the arm bearing the gun. To his relief, Kowalski's finger still rested on the trigger guard. Pengally, however, looked as close to panicking for his life as a heartless professional murderer possibly could.

"For God's sake, Ray, don't do this!" Maggie exhorted, putting one hand to his back. "Don't throw your life away over him!" She and Fraser both shuddered under a sudden wave of deja vu, but they looked at each other for only a split second before refocusing on Kowalski.

"Haven't you ever wanted justice?" Kowalski yelled. "He killed my old man for _nothing!_ Why the hell shouldn't I take him out?"

"Because I don't want to have to visit you in prison!" Maggie answered. The circle closed, her heart raced, and she saw his outstretched arm trembling until Fraser's hand started to creep toward the gun.

"Enough people have died because of him," Fraser urged. He glanced past Pengally at Ray and Sharon, who had taken no notice of the confrontation, still oblivious in their grief. "He won't pay for it by his death, and I won't have you pay for killing him." He slowly reached for Kowalski's weapon and slipped it out of his friend's unresisting hand. Kowalski's face still trembled with rage and hatred, preventing tears from welling up. Pengally, however, took a deep breath and relaxed - but the deep breath never had a chance to expel before Fraser, teeth bared like a snarling wolf, pointed the gun directly between his eyes - its safety already off.

"Peregrine Pengally, oblique stroke Samuel Hill...." Fraser could be plainly heard fighting to keep his voice calm and controlled. "I am arresting you for, amongst untold other crimes, the murders of Damian Kowalski, Erich Wichmann, and Elizabeth Merino, known to me as Victoria Metcalf. You have rights which you do not deserve. It will make no difference whether you choose to exercise them or not. A court of law will decide your fate, which I promise you will not be pleasant. Should it come to light that you were also involved in the deaths of three of our fellow officers and forty-seven innocent citizens of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec just to cover your own tracks, you will be subjected to a sentence even worse than death. You will travel from one end of Canada to the other until every Canadian you _haven't_ killed has had an opportunity to revile you as a savage mass murderer, and you will go down in history as such. Do I make myself unmistakably clear?"

Pengally flicked his gaze briefly at the vicious mask of wrath Kowalski still wore, his teeth showing in a sneer as it sank in that he really had killed the wrong man all those years ago. Until now he'd prided himself on doing the job right the first time - because there was no undoing it: and even if he did manage to get off on a technicality, now there was no reversing his mistake and no hope of rebuilding his reputation.

"That's the only thing that _is_ clear to me anymore," he said finally, his voice a low hiss.

"Good." Fraser let the gun rest on the bridge of his nose. "Kindly resume your position. I don't want to see your face again until we go ashore."

He waited until Pengally had complied completely before he lowered the gun, snapped on the safety and handed it back to Kowalski. The meaningful stare he levelled at his old friend did not go unnoticed: Kowalski slowly reached backward and ensconced the gun in his waistband, without once lifting his burning glare from Pengally. Slowly his arm slid up and around Maggie, who thankfully rested her head on his shoulder.

Then the three of them looked up, looked at Ray and Sharon, and for the first time, felt an overwhelming wave of sorrow for both of them as they held each other into infinity.


	26. Heroes

By the time the _McClellan_ and the _Robert Fraser_ tied up at the Coast Guard station in Rimouski, the pierside triage Prescott had ordered was ready for them. The sun had begun to dip toward the northwest shore of the river, and conspicuously, four RCMP paddy wagons and several cruisers occupied one end of the pier. That the paddy wagons had been summoned for the erstwhile skeleton crew of the _U-896_ was not in question for long: one only had to watch Pengally being escorted to one of the wagons by no fewer than six heavily armed guards for solo transport to the nearest barracks. Prescott presided over the treatment of the remaining crew at the far end of the pier, leaving the rescued prisoners in the hands of Fraser, Maggie, and the group of Coast Guard medics manning the triage.

The death of the _U-896_ had inflicted no lasting serious wounds on any of the girls, but even as Fraser breathed easier over it, he still ground his teeth to find that they'd suffered some minor injuries at the hands of their captors prior to the sinking. Only his many years of rigorous emotional training and self-discipline stopped him from marching straight to the other end of the triage and administering a bullet to the backs of the perpetrators - though he admitted to himself that even if those hadn't stopped him, Maggie certainly would.

Alongside the _McClellan,_ Fraser and Kowalski stood wrapped in warm wool blankets beside Welsh, who looked as if he'd spent a week trying to train for the Boston Marathon. He sat on a dock bollard, bent over, his battered white hat in his hands. He regarded the gold crest on it with a slight smile and bowed his head, wondering how to tell his wife what he'd just been through.

"Will you be all right, sir?" Fraser asked. "If you need some kind of...."

"Oh, don't worry about me, Fraser." Welsh raised his head and smiled. "Take me a few days to unwind from this one, but I'm fine. It's just the damnedest thing. Who would have ever thought my professional career and my retirement would crash into each other anything like this."

"Yeah, like Sergeant Needles," Kowalski offered.

"You mean Sergeant Thorn?" Fraser asked.

"Sergeant Knife-at-your-throat, maybe."

Welsh chuckled and sat up straight on the bollard. "You know, I never thought I'd miss having you two around, but after this trip, I gotta say I do. But if another voyage like this ever comes up in the cards...."

"Be careful what you wish for, sir," Fraser smiled. He looked up at Maggie's approach: she wore a radiant look of accomplishment.

"I think our next stop for those kids is going to be the mess hall," she announced. "I contacted the American embassy. Just about all of them are from the States, so we're making arrangements to return them to their families as soon as possible."

"Very good," Fraser said, nodding with approval.

"Staff Sergeant Fraser!"

He turned to see a thirtyish, dark-haired woman in the uniform of a CCG officer approaching him from the _Robert Fraser_ 's mooring. "I'm Fraser," he acknowledged.

The woman smiled and respectfully nodded her head once as she came to a stop in front of him. "Captain Justine Trudeau, Canadian Coast Guard, at your service."

"Justine Tru...." Fraser's eyebrows scrunched - the name rang a prominent bell. "You wouldn't in any way be related to...."

"No," Trudeau chuckled. "Not that I'm aware of, at least. But this is indeed an honour - my boat is named after your father."

"A _Hero_ -class patrol boat," Fraser said with a slight smile, looking past her at the low-profiled, rakish lines of the brand-new _Robert Fraser._ "Maggie...."

"Dad's still with us," Maggie's smile was much wider as she slid her arm around him. "And still a hero."

"He died in the line of duty," Trudeau said reverently. "For that alone he was specially considered to have a patrol boat named after him. It's my first command, but our first rescue mission will be one for all of us to remember."

"Well, thank you very kindly for your assistance, Captain," Maggie said, putting out her hand. Trudeau shook with her first and then with Fraser, whose face was working strangely as he tried to keep sentimental dampness out of his eyes.

"We stand on guard for thee." Nodding her head once more, Trudeau faced about and headed back toward the _Robert Fraser,_ carrying herself upright, almost regal. At a relaxed marching pace she passed alongside her boat and boarded astern, leaving Fraser and Maggie to admire the sleek vessel, drawn time and again to the name painted on the bow.

"Did you see what I saw?" Maggie asked.

Fraser nodded slowly. "I'm ninety-nine point four percent certain that I did." He squeezed her shoulder and blinked back a tear - he was even surer that he'd just seen the _Robert Fraser_ 's namesake standing on its weatherdeck, casting a proud gaze at the two of them.

"I've been wishing for years I could see him again," Maggie sighed.

"You know, Maggie," Fraser said reflectively, staring off across the river. "They once said of Dad that a young officer would have to move fast and drive hard just to catch his shadow. He could run rings around a suspect right up to the end of his days. It's not just something we learned, it's something we inherited. He's still with us and always will be."

"So will he, for that matter," Maggie said, nodding toward the pier aft of the boat.

Fraser smiled and squeezed her shoulders a little tighter at the sight of another unsung hero of the hour. Barely visible in the sun's reflection on the river, Diefenbaker sat staring off into the sunset before he turned his head and eyed both of them. He was the picture of health now - none of his old wounds or afflictions were even slightly visible this time. Fraser nodded his head once, a nod of true gratitude for everything his beloved wolf had ever done for him, from Prince Rupert Sound to the _Lady of Cobequid._ He glanced at Maggie just long enough to see the mist in her eyes: and when he looked up again, Diefenbaker was gone.

 

Kowalski trailed after Fraser and Maggie over to the triage, where Ray had been occupied for some minutes already with several grateful ex-prisoners. Katerina stood to one side, waiting and watching Ray - seeing in his furrowed, tired face that he only accepted these plaudits out of decency. By no stretch of the imagination did he feel that he deserved anyone's thanks. Still, Katerina begged to differ: when he finally stood alone, she didn't spare a moment in hugging him or pecking him on the cheek. Even from a distance of ten paces, Fraser could see that Ray's smile was forced - not that he could blame him for it.

"We'll see you back home, then?" Katerina queried.

"Yeah," Ray nodded. "But I'll be a little while. Got some family business to attend to first. Oh, I found your phone in your hotel room. I'll drop it in the mail when I get back to Chicago."

"Take all the time you need. You deserve it and then some, Ray. Thank you. Thank you for everything."

"I thought I already owed you my life, Mr. V," Alexandra added from her mother's side. "Until the basketball team, I had no idea what the world would ever want with me. But you literally saved my life today. I don't know how I'm gonna thank you."

"You had a hand in it, too, Lexa. How do you like yourself for team captain? 'Cause after today, I think you're ready for anything." Seeing the surprise filling her expression, Ray patted her arm. "Just think it over, okay? But that's really how I feel."

Katerina could feel her daughter's tightening grasp on her own arm. "Well, first I think we ought to get home and work on putting this awful mess behind us," she submitted. "And be grateful we're alive - thanks to you, Ray."

"Just wish I could've done the same for your father," Ray said dolefully, his head bowed. He didn't speak his even deeper feeling - that Erich Wichmann wasn't the only father he wished he could have saved.

"My father never thought of himself as a hero," Katerina said with a sad smile. "But you said it yourself, if it wasn't for him, we might all be at the bottom of the sea by now. However he died, he died a hero - _our_ hero. No one can take that from him now."

Even as she felt a sort of mournful pride filling her, she still saw nothing but sorrow in Ray. She stepped forward and hugged him again. "And no one can take it from you, either. That's how _I_ really feel."

"Ditto, Mr. V," Alexandra smiled. This time she hugged him gratefully as well before they both turned and made off, arm in arm, for a waiting RCMP transport van.

_(A/n: Fanmix selection["Before You Leave Canada"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pHZtpkfmjM) by Jay Semko)_

Ray slowly started to turn toward the river, mulling over what Katerina had said, that her father had died a hero without ever meaning to. Not fifty feet away floated a Canadian _Hero_ -class patrol boat named in honour of Fraser's father. But Sharon's father....what about him? Hero, or selfish bastard who didn't want to own up to his indiscretions? On the return voyage to Rimouski, they'd heard Pengally muttering darkly about Paulie deliberately blowing the ballast tanks to force the _U-896_ to the surface. He'd branded Paulie a coward for that alone - but if not for that one act, the death toll would have been disastrous. Hero or coward, Ray would never know: he'd failed to save Paulie's life along with the others. Whatever Katerina thought, he damn sure didn't feel like anyone's hero.

"Ray?" Fraser hailed him from one side.

He sighed and spared an oblique glance at his friends before turning to stare off across the river. "I think it's time to go home, Benny."

"Yes, I quite agree." Fraser turned at the approach of another warm body to his peripheral vision. Tired yet relieved, Peter Lerschen ambled up to the trio, wrapped in a battered leather coat that made him look much the part of a U-boat commander himself.

"I just wanted to say, thanks for letting me pitch in," he said, regarding each of the three of them with an expression of friendly warmth.

"What, are you kiddin' me?" Ray said amicably. "We couldn't have done this without you."

"Well, then, this is a day it'll feel good to be me." With a sigh, Lerschen stared out at the slowly lumbering river. "It's a damned shame. All this time I've been looking forward to seeing the _U-896_ come to light again. But if I'd only known the real reason...."

"Well, you had no way of knowing the circumstances," Fraser offered.

"No, I guess not. But at least somebody knew the real reason, and so did his old shipmates. And the dead souls on a lost ship will never allow it to be abused - don't ever let anyone tell you different."

"Oh, yeah, me and Fraser learned that lesson a long time ago," Kowalski said with a grin.

"From the thirty-two down on the _Robert MacKenzie,_ no less," Fraser nodded assent. "But this past week has been one that will stay with us until the end of our days. I think you'll find it well worth writing about."

"Yeah, it's an adventure novel waiting to happen," Ray said dryly.

"That, or a new chapter in history." Grinning, Lerschen shook hands with Fraser, then with each of the Rays in turn. "See you around."

Fraser watched him lope off away from the pier alongside Welsh, two friends with a passion for the sea who had just put that passion to life-saving use without ever seeing it coming. He couldn't help drawing a parallel with his own passion for justice that he shared with his friends, which had saved two dozen lives in like manner - but remembering what Ray had told him about his brother's involvement with Victoria, he lowered his head, tracing the chain reaction back thirty years to his first encounter with her. He couldn't shake the weighty feeling that his passion for justice had overpowered everything else, gotten her killed in the long run: that if he had released her all those years ago instead of taking her in, such tragedy would never have struck him, her, or now her daughter and the Vecchio family.

When he lifted his head again, Ray had drifted off to the edge of the pier and stood gazing far away into the reflection of the sun. Slowly Fraser paced over to him, reminded of another conversation they'd had long ago in a hospital waiting room as Ray lost a woman he had loved deeply.

"The first time I heard Victoria's voice," he said softly, clearing his throat, "she recited a poem written over a hundred years ago. _Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here; Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier."_

"Shakespeare?" Ray guessed.

"Hopkins, actually."

"Brute beauty and valour and act." Ray's voice cracked slightly as he repeated the line. "One of the last things Paulie said to me was, he wanted to make up for a hell of a lot of dumb mistakes. I don't think I'll ever stop askin' myself just which of them made him decide to go out the way he did." He paused, clenching his teeth against a sudden up-welling of emotion from deep within.

"Do you honestly think Paulie meant for Victoria to die?" Fraser asked finally.

Ray shook his head and sighed. "Aah, I don't know, Fraser," he mumbled. "And I don't think I ever will. All I know is, she wanted to get me one of these days and that's why she did all this. If she ever found out I was in Florida, she just might have."

"I have to admit I'm more than a little confounded as to her motive for it."

"Well, you know better than I do, Victoria never stopped looking for revenge. She thought you were dead, so she decided to get back at me for it. She used Paulie, used Sharon, used everybody else who crossed paths with her. God knows how she was gonna do me in if she ever found me."

"She was an excellent planner," Fraser agreed. "Unfortunately for her, she was never any good at dealing with complications."

They were silent for a long moment, watching the river crawl by. It seemed an hour before either of them thought of something else to say.

"You know I never told him?" Ray said without lifting his eyes from the water.

"About what, exactly?" Fraser asked.

"Victoria. I never told him who she really was. Kept it in my back pocket the whole time, but I was just about to pull it out when the flooding started....and I never got the chance."

"Perhaps it's just as well, Ray. I mean, to find out that you were lied to and betrayed by someone you loved moments before your death....I don't take much pleasure in the thought." Fraser sucked in a deep breath and expelled it in a sigh. "It almost happened to me, after all. In fact, Paulie and I were both lied to and betrayed by the same woman. Yet I survived and he didn't."

"There's nothin' to blame yourself for, Benny. He was my brother. I could have saved him. _Should_ have saved him. Boy, if my old man could just see us now, huh?"

"Well, maybe something has come of it. You have a new niece, after all. It goes without saying she's devastated by the loss of both her parents. But I think knowing that she still has family will give her another reason to hope."

"How do you know?"

"I remember how much brighter the world seemed after I first met Maggie and discovered that she and I were related. I still had a family. And you know, I think that's one thing that's kept me going all these years - long enough to see you and Stan again for another adventure."

"Well, you were right about one thing," Ray said matter-of-factly. "We're older, but....not dead." He stared sightlessly out to the river as he thought about those who were dead. Whether they needed to die or not....

"Uncle Ray?"

He turned around. Sharon stood behind him, clutching an RCMP-issue peacoat around her shoulders. It was the first time she'd addressed him with a family title, and it made Ray wonder about Fraser's statement as to her need for family.

"What's gonna happen to me now?" she asked plaintively.

Ray glanced at Fraser, and Fraser glanced at Ray. Before them stood the daughter of their worst enemy, but she was still only a child, now orphaned and very much alive - and even Ray could see it in her eyes just as easily as Fraser: she was hopelessly lost. She might be more Metcalf than Vecchio, but she had Vecchio in her nonetheless, and under that name, family came second to nothing. The only uncertainty was how to convince her of the truth about her mother, but with enough time and positive environment, anything was possible.

Finally Ray moved over and put a blanketed arm around her. "Well, not gonna lie. We got a lot to talk about and a lot to think over. I know one place you can go, though. And it _isn't_ into the drink."

"My mother." Sharon looked up at him with a face full of worry, biting her lip. "What you said about her on the sub, after I told you we were visiting Chicago. You keep saying she and my father both used me against each other. You said she never told my father her real name....and you keep calling her Victoria." Here she glanced at Fraser, whose face fell empathetically.

"Did she ever tell you why she would want to deceive your father?" Fraser asked quietly.

"No. I don't know, I just....it seemed like we were always on the move for something, and I always had this feeling like she was keeping some deep, dark secret from me."

 _Victoria's secret,_ Ray thought wryly to himself, trying not to chortle.

"Yes, Sharon, I'm afraid so," Fraser said slowly, moistening his lower lip. "I knew your mother long before you were born. She and I...." His voice trailed off as it occurred to him that this didn't all need to come out right away. "Well, as your uncle says, we have a great deal to discuss in the coming days."

 

"Sure hope she'll be okay," Kowalski said to Maggie as they watched Fraser, Ray, and Sharon from several metres distant.

"Kids are tough," Maggie said reassuringly. "Sometimes they just don't give themselves enough credit for getting through stuff like this. As a matter of fact, it reminds me of a nasty incident involving my mother and a grizzly bear in the far northwest...."

"Uh, yeah, I'll hear it some other time." Kowalski forced a smile and faced her. He was pretty sure he'd heard the story before, many long years ago, but he was a man of the present, and right now Maggie had his undivided attention. "You ever think about 'em, Maggs?"

"Grizzly bears?"

"No, kids."

"Oh." Maggie smiled briefly. "On and off. But Casey and I were never around each other long enough to try it, and after I found out why...." She swallowed hard and cast a long, deliberate look at the _Robert Fraser_ to take her mind off her long-lost marriage. "I don't know, Ray. I'm pretty sure I'm well past the age now."

"Hey, we just found out there's some things you're never too old for," Kowalski said, nodding toward the river. "I mean, er, we finally nailed the Penguin, so now that my biggest case is a wrap...."

"Actually, there's plenty of things you're never too old for." Finally Maggie turned and faced him. "And as we know too well by now, the older we get, the faster time passes. We can only spend so much of it talking."

Once again, the ice in her eyes melted under his grin as she clasped the sides of his neck and kissed him, open-mouthed.

Kowalski had both hands clasped at the small of her back by the time she was finished. "There's only so much time we can spend a thousand miles away from each other, too," he murmured. "And me - I'm not lookin' forward to bein' _anywhere_ away from you right now."

"Then leave me with something I'll always remember."

Then Maggie closed her eyes and held them firmly closed, letting feeling take over and trying not to let them leak as a poignant song lyric coursed through her mind.

_Before you leave Canada, just kiss me goodbye  
I swear it's the last time you'll ever see a Canadian cry...._


	27. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it, my friends. *sniffle* I hope you savour it as much as I.
> 
> (TYK to Annie M for concrit and feedback on the sitting version of this chapter.)

"Alonzo, what the hell is your hurry?" Gina shouted, making no attempt to hide the annoyance in her voice. Alonzo was headed from the school bus stop back to the house at a near dead run, and it was all she could do to keep up with him.

"It's almost three o'clock and Bobby Relinski's playing 'X-Men: Evolution' on his livestream," Alonzo yelled over his shoulder. "It's the one where Storm brings her nephew to the institute for the first time, and I don't wanna miss it. He's the coolest kid in the whole show!"

"Oh, give me a break," Gina exclaimed. "Alonzo, you are such a _geek!_ That show is older than you are!"

"Damn right I'm a geek!" Alonzo laughed.

"Hey, watch your mouth, you little sh - " Gina would have gone all out and said it, had she not seen Alonzo coming to a dead halt in front of her - and then seen why. She could feel her own face lighting up like a sunburst as she saw the familiar, sleek leaf-green lines of the ancient Riviera turning the corner just up the street.

"Hey, Uncle Ray's back!" Alonzo blurted from a broadly grinning mouth. He bypassed the front walk to the house and ran a few more paces up the sidewalk, breathless with anticipation as the Riviera swung over to the kerb and eased to a halt. Yet for all Alonzo's excited beaming, Gina couldn't help noticing Ray's face as he got out: he looked twenty years older and fifty years wearier than when he'd left the house only a week ago.

"Hi, Uncle Ray!" Alonzo leapt off the kerb and met Ray in front of the car, throwing a spirited hug on him.

"Hey, buddy," Ray said, grinning tiredly as he hugged Alonzo with one arm and beckoned Gina to join the hug with the other. "Man, you two are a sight for sore eyes. You doing okay, Gina?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine." Gina's own eyes sparkled, as hopeful as Ray's were sore. The bruise on her forehead had faded away to a faint scar, not even noticeable if she applied her makeup just right. "Did you get the bad guys?" she asked eagerly.

"Yeah." Ray nodded and wished in vain that his smile could look more enthusiastic than it really was. "Yeah, we got the bad guys. And we got someone else, too." He sidled between the kids and over to the Riviera's passenger door, tugging it open.

Alonzo watched with curiosity as Ray reached into the car and helped out a girl slightly older than he, a girl with a face like a rounded triangle, long wavy black hair and eyes that might have been vibrant once upon a time, but now were clouded with shell shock. She wore a pair of skinny jeans and a "Once Upon a Time" hoodie, still crisply new. Her apprehensive expression wasn't lost on Gina, who instinctively regarded her with a smidge of sympathy.

"Kids, I want you to meet your cousin Sharon," Ray said. "And I'm tellin' you right now, go easy on her. She's literally been through hell and high water, and she and I are awfully lucky to be alive."

Gina, predictably, was the first to step forward, beaming a smile of tropical temperature at the new family member. "Hey," she greeted Sharon, gesturing for a hug. "I'm Gina. And that's my nerdy little brother Alonzo over there."

Sharon smiled back shyly and hesitated at first, but then the warmth of Gina's face overcame her and she stepped gratefully into the hug. "Hi," she said, at last exhaling. "So glad to meet you finally. Uncle Ray said you'd be the coolest cousins ever."

"He's your uncle, too?" Alonzo joined in, still rapt with curiosity.

Ray blew out a quiet sigh as the kids continued chatting. Eventually, he'd have to tell them everything - everything about Paulie, possibly even everything about Victoria - if Sharon didn't beat him to it. For that matter, he'd have to tell Francesca and Maria what had happened, too. The catch would be that not a word of it must ever reach Ma's ears. Any day now could be her last, there was no call to bring it on any sooner.

He turned away to see Kowalski's black GTO turning the same corner he'd just taken, trundling down the street and pulling up behind the Riviera. By the time Fraser and Kowalski had pried themselves out of the car, the kids were already headed up the front walk to the house: Gina and Sharon still hadn't broken physical contact. At least Ray had assumed correctly that Gina would jump at the chance to have a cousin closer to her own age, and Sharon would be thankful to be still part of a family - even _this_ one.

"Well, so far, so good," he said as Fraser and Kowalski joined him on the sidewalk.

"That's a relief," Fraser said, nodding. "I am somewhat concerned about her after everything she's been through."

"Well, then we better get in there before all those Vecchios scare her away," Kowalski suggested. 

Ray gave him a dirty look, but deep down he knew Kowalski made terrible, terrible sense. He made haste for the front door, able to see from the presence of all Vecchio vehicles that Francesca, Maria, and Tony were all home already. God alone knew how long they'd been going at it _before_ Sharon made her debut.

"All right, all right, already!" Ray roared as he burst into the house. _"Zitto, zitti,_ everybody shut - " He stopped dead in his tracks and his words, dumbfounded at what he saw. Where he'd been expecting his sisters and brother-in-law to be bickering the shingles off the roof of the house without even noticing that Sharon was there, he beheld Francesca grasping both of Sharon's hands with a blinding smile and the expression of a mother hen instead of an aunt. Gina stood to one side and Maria to the other, massaging the girl's shoulder. Sharon was trying to smile, but Ray could see her fidgeting - she'd been undergoing a barrage of curious questions from both Francesca and Maria by the time he'd interrupted.

"You were saying, Ray?" Francesca's smile dimmed somewhat, and she regarded him much as she might have regarded him for bum-rushing her first boyfriend when they were teenagers.

"Uh, nothing," Ray said finally, wringing his hands together. He glanced awkwardly over his shoulder at Fraser and Kowalski as they sidled into the house behind him. "I, uh, see you've met the new family member?"

"Yeah, and I can't believe you never told us about her till now," Maria said, sliding her arm all the way around Sharon's shoulders. "How'd you make it all these years without finding your family, _nipote?"_

"Well, I, uh...." Sharon hesitated. "To be honest, I didn't know about any of you. It was just my....my mom and me till now."

Kowalski leant toward Fraser with half a smirk. "Remember the first time you had dinner with this bunch?" he muttered under his breath.

"All too clearly," Fraser mumbled back. "And you?"

"This ain't a family you ever forget you were part of. Even if you were just pretendin'." Kowalski glanced at Ray, who was now edging his way into the gathering.

For Ray's neck hair was by now fairly rigid as he observed Sharon's body language. She'd already swallowed and shot a pointed look toward the floor - Ray caught not only that action but the tensing of her shoulders under Maria's arm. However, the tremor in her voice did it for him: he remembered enough of Vegas to recognise the early symptoms of PTSD. It had been hard enough to deal with when he turned forty, he didn't want to think about how it must be afflicting Sharon at sixteen.

"All right, look, let's give the kid some space, huh?" he said in a much calmer tone, gently manhandling her into clear air.

"What, are you kidding?" Maria chortled. "Wouldn't be the Vecchio household if we weren't all standing in two square feet of space together!"

"Yeah, well, this is an awful lot for her to take in after what she's been through. Gina, why don't you show her upstairs and introduce her to Nonna?"

"Love to." The radiance of Gina's face seemed to cool Sharon's nerves considerably. "And she's gonna love _you,_ Sharon."

"Are - are you sure? I mean, she's never even met me."

"Oh, for reals, all she needs to know is that you're family. She's won the Granny Award every year _I've_ been alive."

"Granny Award, huh?" Sharon repeated. She smiled - the first time Ray had seen more than a quirked corner of the mouth since he'd first run across her. "I didn't even know I had grandparents."

"Oh, she's grand, all right," Alonzo called over his shoulder from the computer desk. "Isn't she, Ma?"

"Yeah, but she still made me finish my homework before I could go play," Francesca answered. "So yours better be done before you even touch that power button, mister!"

"Okay, well, uh...." Sharon tossed up her hands expectantly. "What are we waiting for, Christmas?"

"Hey, in this family, it's worth waiting for." Ray smiled genially, but then he shot an oblique glance toward his sisters and dropped his voice a tone. "Now listen, Sharon. Whatever you do, don't tell her about your father. There's been enough loss in this family as it is and I don't wanna make things any worse. Promise me, okay?"

"I promise," Sharon nodded.

"Good. 'Cause when a Vecchio promise gets broken, there's gonna be hell to pay. And you already know what happens when you lie to people you're close to. Go on now." He patted her gently on the shoulder, but he maintained a straight, steady face, satisfied to see that she took the warning seriously. She smiled again and nodded as she moved away, still eyeing him, until a grinning Gina touched her hand and showed her away to the stairs.

"All right, Raimondo, time to spill," Tony asserted. "Where the hell did she come from?"

"Funny you should put it that way," Ray replied. Pulling off his coat, he headed into the kitchen and plunked himself down at the head of the table. "She was in her own private hell when I met her."

"Yeah, what's all this I'm hearing about 'hell and high water', anyway?" Francesca asked with a nonplussed shrug of her shoulders as she, Tony and Maria took seats to either side. "You didn't get rolled into Lake Michigan in the trunk of another car, did you?"

"Sounds like you got a story to tell us there," Tony remarked.

Ray chortled, nodding his head. "Yeah, long one. I'll have to tell you the rest sooner than later, but...." He paused a moment to gather his courage and swallow. "She's Paulie's kid. He showed up out of nowhere right after I found her."

"Paulie?" This from Maria, whose face looked as if she'd had a neck massage go suddenly awry. "You can't be serious. He's been gone for thirty years!"

"Yeah, he was," Ray went on, the image of regret. "But now he's gone for good."

Fraser and Kowalski glanced at each other without the slightest trace of amusement as Ray's revelation sank in. Maria and Francesca were both blank-faced and speechless - even Gina's abduction a week ago hadn't instilled such profound shock in either of them. Tony slowly sat back in his chair and stared at the tabletop without seeing it. He'd never met his other brother-in-law - not that he'd had much desire, after what he'd heard from the others about him - but that same profound shock touched him vicariously.

"What do you mean, he's gone for good?" Francesca piped up at last. By her expression and Maria's, you could tell them apart by little other than their hair colour. "What, did he steal his girlfriend's shoes and get impaled by a spike heel?"

"No," Ray grunted.

"Oh, so he got drunk off his ass and wrapped his car around the front of a train, was that it?" Maria ventured.

"No!" Ray snapped. He looked up and glared at her, disbelieving of the wild theories he was hearing - but then it struck him that neither of his sisters had been there to see Paulie redeem himself in the end. All they remembered of him was his shiftless, petty-criminal behaviour for which they'd ostracised him decades ago and driven him to drop out of everyone's sight.

Finally he sighed and stared at the tabletop before him. "It's a long story about a short reunion. Let's just say we're not gonna see him ever again."

Francesca shook her head, chortling softly. "He turned out just like Dad, didn't he? Got himself killed in the stupidest way he could think of, and he left that poor little kid behind, same as Dad did." She nodded past Ray at the stairs, up which Gina and Sharon had vanished well over a minute ago. Ray could think of nothing to say and no way to react besides slowly rubbing his forehead - he remembered too suddenly that Francesca had barely been out of her teens when their father died, just before remembering how Paulie had chosen to leave the world.

"Unfortunately, yes," Fraser answered her. "I'm sorry to say Paulie had gotten somehow involved with the kidnapping ring we were investigating. However, it has to be noted that he gave his life to save a number of others, including Ray's and Sharon's."

"Well, that was surprisingly big of him," Maria commented. "Sure wish Dad would've been thinking of us like that when he tried to drive home from the sports bar." Her tone of voice gave her scepticism away.

"What about this girl's mother?" Tony chimed in. "Is she in the picture anywhere?"

"I'm....I'm afraid her mother is also dead," Fraser replied. He paused and swallowed as he fought off another pang of emotion. "And that leaves you as her closest living relatives. Now she is sixteen and has thus far been raised by an ex-convict, but there is still time to bring her around."

"Well, that bein' the case," Tony remarked, "someone's gotta look after her, probably for a lot more than the next couple of years."

"Yes," Fraser nodded. "And who will take on that job is entirely up to the four of you as her nearest relations."

"Well, I don't know about you, Tony," Maria commented. "I kinda miss having kids in the house."

"What're you talking about?" Francesca demanded. "You've got three of 'em in here right now! What makes you think you've got space for a fourth?"

"Oh, don't start, Frannie...." As Maria jumped to the escalating argument, Kowalski nudged Fraser's arm and moved past him toward the entry way. Fraser was only too glad to follow - he could feel a slight ache in his skull already just from listening to them and knowing that they weren't getting anywhere with Sharon's fate.

"Look, Fraser," Kowalski muttered under his breath. "Between you and me, we both know it's gotta be Vecchio if it's gonna be any of them."

"Which Vecchio, exactly?"

"You know who I mean, buddy. I mean, what'd you and me learn up on Lake Superior that time? You almost drown together but you live through it, and, uh, it forms a bond that don't break easy, y'know what I'm sayin'? Like, uh, like that Inuit tale you told me about the two villages that got flooded by the same pond and helped each other dry out." Kowalski turned and peeked into the kitchen - he couldn't see any of the faces of the Vecchio siblings, but voices were already rising. "I mean, listen to 'em. They're, they're gonna eat each other alive before they even remember what her name is."

"Yes, I think you're quite right," Fraser nodded. He glanced into the kitchen again, just in time to see Ray slapping one hand on the tabletop, shoving himself back and standing up.

"All right, look, I don't have time for this," he snapped. "Soon as you three figure out which end is up, let me know, willya? I'll be back in Daytona Beach by then!"

"Yeah, provided the engine doesn't fall right out of that old bucket of bolts," Tony called after him. Scornfully Ray waved a hand at him as he exited the kitchen in a huff.

"Ray, a word?" Fraser said. Sighing heavily, Ray sidled over to join him and Kowalski near the front door. "I couldn't help noticing the way Sharon latched onto you after we came ashore in Rimouski. You not only saved her life, you revealed to her a truth about herself that she'd only been vaguely aware of. Whether sixteen or six, we all had an innate need for stability in our early lives, and she lost whatever stability she had when Paulie decided to go down with the ship. But you were there for her, so in my considered opinion, you - "

"You can shut up now, Benny." Ray waved both his hands in opposite directions. "I'm gonna take her. Paulie asked me to, right before he flooded the boat. It was the last thing he ever said."

Fraser nodded quietly. "I understand."

"Gonna be a long twisty road to help her get her life straightened out, you know," Kowalski warned.

"Yeah, I know." Ray stared hard at the floor between Fraser's feet. "The way I see it, though....she and I hardly knew Paulie, but we both lost him. So we both gotta help each other get back on our feet."

"It would be very magnanimous of you, Ray," Fraser offered.

"Yeah," Ray grunted. Without another word, he turned away and plodded toward the stairs, tuning out the muted jabbering of his siblings.

Fraser cocked his head toward the door, but he had just planted one foot on the mat when Francesca stood up from the kitchen table. "Hey, Frase?" she called out.

His nerves freezing, Fraser turned and responded with naught but a questioning look.

"Um, how long do you figure on hanging around?" she asked. "'Cause it sounds to me like we got a lot of talking to do. And if you need a place to stay...." She smiled a smile Fraser hadn't seen in many long years - a smile of warm friendliness bordering on obsessive affection.

"Well, ah...." he replied awkwardly, clearing his throat. "Thank you kindly, Francesca. I'll, er, I'll take it under advisement."

"Well, you know where to find me." Francesca's voice had taken on the consistency of warm maple syrup.

"Yeah, at his bedroom door," Maria scoffed.

"Oh, don't _you_ start now!"

As Vecchio siblinghood once again filled the entire lower floor of the house, Fraser scratched the side of his neck and edged outside. Kowalski followed, trotting down the steps after him until they reached the junction of the front walk and the street.

"'Take it under advisement'?" he repeated. "What the hell is that, Canadian for 'let's go to bed together'?"

"Certainly not," Fraser huffed. "After all, I'm....I'm hardly in the emotional state to entertain the notion of commencing an intimate relationship with anyone. It simply means that there are much more important matters to be discussed, Sharon's future chief amongst them."

"Yeah," Kowalski agreed. He half-turned and nodded back at the house. "I, er, I just hope Vecchio's up to it."

"I don't think it really matters," Fraser said frankly. "He's the closest thing Sharon has to a father now. In fact, after what we've seen and heard, I think he's the closest thing to a father she's ever had."

"Yeah. That's, um, that's good. That's greatness. She's, uh, she's a lucky kid."

Fraser noticed at once that Kowalski was staring away at the street in lieu of looking him in the eye. "What's on your mind, Ray?" he probed.

"Well, uh....speaking of intimate relationships, I was thinkin'. If all else failed, if Vecchio didn't want anything to do with her, maybe....maybe me and Maggie could take care of her, y'know? I think we both had it in mind, sorta."

"You mean as a couple?"

"Well, not necessarily...." Kowalski scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Look, Fraser, I know she's your sister and all, but....I feel like maybe it's not too late, like maybe she and I could still have something together. And after that time I spent with you up in Canada, I bet I could prob'ly get used to it again."

Fraser couldn't stop his eyebrows from rising at the thought of Kowalski becoming his brother-in-law as well as his close friend - it wasn't a level he'd ever expected to get close to, but one or two other levels still intervened. "Well, you know, your life is here, Ray, not to mention your livelihood. As we discussed a few days ago, it's not an easy thing to pull up stakes and drive them down again in a completely different environment than the one you've always known."

"Yeah, but they still have private investigators in Canada, don't they?"

"What about your business here?"

"We just took down the Penguin. That's been my business for years, now it's, it's over and done with. So maybe it's time for a fresh start, y'know? I mean, look at you and me. We've been partners, we've been friends, we've been travel buddies...."

"Not to mention the centre of unprecedented volumes of speculation." Fraser smiled knowingly. "And you feel that we could start fresh again by becoming brothers-in-law?"

"Well, how's that sit with you? Me, I think we've made out pretty damn good as everything else so far."

"It would be a new adventure, to be sure. And every adventure we've ever shared has had a way of forming a new bond altogether."

At the opening of the front door, they both turned to see Ray emerging from the house. His expression was considerably lighter than the last time they saw him, but he still took his time coming down the steps.

"All is in order, Ray?" Fraser enquired.

"Well, I think we're gonna stick around for a few days just so Sharon can get to know the family and have an idea what she's coming into," Ray answered.

"Did you tell her the same thing you told me one time?" Fraser smiled. "That they only attack the ones they love?"

"I think she's all aware of that already." Ray sighed and turned around, looking up and down the front of the house. "I gotta say, though, it's gonna be harder than ever to walk away from all this and head back to Florida. With everything that's happened in this family lately...."

"Believe me, Ray, I perfectly understand," Fraser said reflectively. "But at the same time, I recall a folk tune that popped into my mind a long time ago - not long after I first came to Chicago, in fact."

"Yeah, how'd it go?" Kowalski asked.

Fraser looked from one of his friends to the other, eager for the chance to share something that had come to mean so much to him. Pitch-perfect as ever, he sang:

 

 

_High winds and northern skies will carry you away_  
_You know you have to leave here, you wish that you could stay_  
_There's four directions on this map, but you're only goin' one way_  
_Due South!_  
_That's the way I'm goin', Due South_  
_Saddle up my travellin' shoes, I'm bound to walk away these blues_  
_Due South...._

"Tell me something, Kowalski," Ray grinned as they fell into step on either side of Fraser. "Am I the only one who thinks this sounds like the theme song from some TV movie?"

"Maybe it's time for somebody to make one," Kowalski grinned back. Laughing, Fraser launched on into the second verse.

 

 

_You can walk a hundred thousand miles, never find a home_  
_You always knew someday you'd have to strike out on your own_  
_You look up at the clouds and you can see which way the wind is blowin'_  
_Due South!_  
_That's the way I'm goin', Due South_  
_Saddle up my travellin' shoes, I'm bound to walk away these blues_  
_Due South...._

Side by side, marching in time with Fraser's song, the three old friends headed down the block as the sun began to arc downward to their right. Kowalski clapped Fraser on the shoulder, and for a moment Ray imagined that they would march all the way back to Florida just listening to that song, but he wouldn't have made a fuss if they did. Twenty years older and yet still firmly bonded by friendship and partnership, Benton Fraser, Ray Vecchio and Ray Kowalski still formed an irresistible force, no matter where they headed together - or in what direction.

 

_Oh, Due South!_  
_That's the way I'm goin', Due South_  
_Saddle up my travellin' shoes, I'm bound to walk away these blues, Due...._  
_Saddle up my travellin' shoes, I'm bound to walk away these blues_  
_Due South, Due South_  
_Due South...._

**_The_ END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *wipes a tear*
> 
> I was a fifteen-year-old mildly autistic, heavily bullied high-school kid when _Due South_ first came on the air. I can honestly say that _nothing_ \- no educational experience, no family matter, no fact or work of fiction, no life imitation of art - has had such a profound effect on my life as _Due South_ and its characters, and twenty years later, that's still the serge-clad truth. So now you know what an enormous labour of love this story has been for me over the past year and a half. Whether you've read the entire thing, whether you're planning to read the entire thing now that it's complete, you just read bits and pieces of it, or never even got past the prologue - if you read it a'tall, if you enjoyed it, if you left kudos and/or comments, if you gave me direct or indirect advice on a scene here and there, and if you didn't use it to troll me or anyone else - I can only say: THANK. YOU. KINDLY.


End file.
